Galanthus breeding

[Diane Whitehead]

Rob,

There is a thread titled "Galanthus breeding"

[Anthony Darby]

Yes Rob, all ready and waiting.

[Diane Whitehead]

Two kind forumists sent me pollen from some yellow-flowered plants.

I pollinated the only two cultivars of poculiform elwesii that are blooming
for me this year, in hopes that the lack of markings will make yellow marks
appear in the first generation seedlings. 

Then I followed advice about also pollinating some nivalis so that I can
be sure of having some fertile seedlings to carry on with.  I had to wait
for my nivalis to open, and I have just now pollinated flowers from two
lots of wild-collected seeds.

The little foil-wrapped packets are now in the freezer to be used in the
fall when my reginae-olgae flower.

Hmm - maybe I should have crossed some woronowii as well.

Now to hover over the (hopefully) developing seedpods.

Meantime, I have fat elwesii seedpods trussed up to stakes.  This is the
species that thrives here.

[Maggi Young]

Terrific example of Forum cooperation, Diane!  Best of luck for good results from all your diligent tickling 

[KentGardener]

glad you got some yellow stuff Diane.  I wanted to help out but have been worried about this virus outbreak I have been experiencing so didn't want to pass any plants on.  I didn't realise that it was possible to send polen across the ocean and for it to still be viable in a different country.

Looking forward to 2012 and seeing any offspring you produce.

John x

[Diane Whitehead]

Here's a view that isn't often shown.

These are from elwesii crosses made at the beginning of February.

[Maggi Young]

What good fat shiny seed pods, Diane.... full of promise, I'm sure 

[Gerard Oud]

Diane and Martin,
 
There is a new possibility about getting sterile plants fertile ( polyploid).
Were are using a gas container at the moment for the Lillypollenation, which can do 7 atm, and were you can put a complete plant with pollen in.
After a certain period treated with N2O (2 atm), the pollen will be polyploid at several different levels.
So you have a lot more chance to breed with a good sterile plant instead of treating the twinscales with Oryzaline.
I will post pictures later.

[Martin Baxendale]

That sounds very interesting, Gerard. Should give much faster results than treating twinscales and growing them on to get pollen.

[Gerard Oud]

Here are the promised pictures.
The procedure is to put a plant, that is about 1 or 2 weeks before flowering, in the container and leave it in for about 48 hours at a pressure of 5 bar N2O.
Then you can take the plant out, and the undevelopped pollen have for a large percentage become polyploid and fertile.

good luck

[Diane Whitehead]

Must it be N2O?  Would increasing the pressure of ordinary air also work?

I am trying to think of how I could set this up at home. 

Maybe I need to ask for a bit of space at the university or at one of our
government research stations.

[Gerard Oud]

Hello Diane,
If you have to chance to do so , do it because the whole thing did cost about 3000 euro.
And yes Diane it has to be N2O, it has been tested here in Holland and N2O gave the best results.
I have not found out jet, if there are smaller equipment available, this one is about 2mtr high.

[Gerard Oud]

Diane and Martin,

If you are not able to get or use this machine, i can have the plants treated you want to breed with.
When you send me the bulbs , i will plant them and send you the pollen in the springtime, i return the bulbs later as dormant.

[Diane Whitehead]

Well, it's another breeding season.  How did you do last year?

No seeds from the flowers I pollinated with the several types of pollen
from yellows (lutescens, Wendy's Gold, Ray Cobb) that Forumists
kindly sent me last year.  I froze the pollen to use on my reg-olgae, but
for the first time, they didn't flower.  So I have just used the remaining
lutescens pollen on four poculiform elwesii.

I'm not being successful collecting pollen from my potted plants.  The
lampshade woronowii I bought produced none.  A potful of mixed poc
seedlings has produced none.  I've just brought some cut flowers in
from the garden and have them in a vase, with a small dish placed
under each to collect pollen.

[Diane Whitehead]

The stigmatic surface is so tiny.  I fold back the petals and gently
swish the style through the pollen I've collected on a hard surface
(Japanese sauce dishes are a good size).  It is possible to see that
the tip of the style is yellow from pollen.

I've tried this with new flowers, and the pollen clings.  However,
it is a bit difficult to know if a flower really is newly opened because
it is usually cloudy here, and so the flowers are all closed, and therefore
all look new.

I don't usually bother to emasculate flowers in the garden because it is
very rare for seed to set naturally here.  In fact, I can't remember ever
having a seedpod that was not the result of my pollinating, and lots of
my crosses produce no pods at all.