Narcissus in August 2018

[fermi de Sousa]

These "viris" are  lovely!

Here's the latest "viri", Maggi,
'Viriquilla' ('Limequilla' x 'Emerald Sea')
cheers
fermi

[Maggi Young]

Gorgeous!

 AnneW - are you working on anything like these hybrids? ( pretty please??!!)

[Mini-daffs]

 
I have ventured outside to visit our garden and the daffodils. I took our camera so there are a few photos. Lots flowering now.
Maggi, there is a whole world of autumn and winter flowering daffodils being developed. At the forefront of developments in Australia is another Canberra hybridiser, Lawrence Trevanion. The biggest problem is that the flowers and plants are not that keen on really cold weather in winter time. They prefer frost free climates. That being said some of the viridiflorus hybrids flower at the same time as other narcissus. We have several jonquilla hybrids that we obtained from Lawrence that are fertile and should be able to be crossed with our fertile jonquilla hybrids. The ones we have will be used for breeding 7Y-O seedlings.
To do a lot of viridiflorus hybridising I will need to get a glasshouse.

[Mini-daffs]

Hi
A few more photos.

[fermi de Sousa]

Graham ,
now you've done it
Lesley will be ordering a dozen of those mini-split cups as soon as she can get the quarantine arrangements done!
 
In flower today:
1) 'Taztep' a tazetta hybrid from Lawrence Trevanion
2) A lemon coloured "hoop" - can't find a label so not sure of its origin
3) Narcissus fernandesii v cordubensis seedling
4) Narcissus 'Rapture'
cheers
fermi

[Maggi Young]

Hello Graham,
 Yes, I am aware of the  work being done on the other side of the world with those daffs- I'd just like Anne W - who is a tad more accessible to us here in the UK, to get on the  case!
I remember asking you about your miniatures in the distant past and  you said  no-one here would  be interested because of the cost. Then there is the problem of turning their  growing season for the northern hemisphere..... so you can see why a UK source of  great hybrids would be  appealing!   

[Maggi Young]

I see the Viri-hybrids in  Lawrence Trevannion's  list seem  fairly  affordable!

[Mini-daffs]

 
Hi
Maggie, while Lawrence's list contains things that are very affordable the main problem these days is the ability to export bulbs. You have to be a registered exporter and there are lots of rules to be complied with to export. Most growers who used to export have given it away because of the complexity and cost of exporting. We are registered and still export but it is a long time since we exported to the UK. If you look at Anne's work you can see some of our hybrids have been used by Anne. Within Australia, there are special rules to ship to Tasmania. They are more onerous than the rules that apply to us to export to the US or EU.
I am just in the process of arranging for an inspection of our bulbs in growth so we can export to the EU. In February we will need to have our soil tested so we can export to the US. We are lucky that in Canberra there is a world expert on nematodes so we can get a report from him.
Bio-security is a big issue for us. We don't have very many visitors to our property because we need to keep diseases out.
The local Horticultural Society Spring Bulb and Camellia Show is one of the best daffodil shows in the world because it has 3 hybridisers who exhibit their flowers. Besides Lawrence and Keira Bulbs, there is Tony Davis who breeds some of the best standard daffodils around. We have been exporting some of Tony Davis' bulbs to the US but are limited by the costs associated with big heavy standard bulbs vis-à-vis miniatures.
Graham

[annew]

I agree the phytosanitary certificate route is extraordinarily time consuming and frustrating, not to say expensive. Goodness knows what will happen here after Brexit. We are keeping our fingers crossed. Charges have increased a lot already since last year.
I have indeed used some of Graham's hybrids. It is always interesting to introduce some new genes, although I expect Graham probably started with many of the same cultivars available over here. It cuts out a few generations to use hybrids from further down a selected line. Most of the seedlings I raise nowadays are crosses between my own hybrids (some of which may have Graham's plants as ancestors).
An aside - Graham, please can you use a black font for your posts - I find the blue to be a trigger of my migraine, and find it very disturbing to read. 

[Mini-daffs]

 
Hi
I have been using blue for many years but I will revert to black so I don't trigger migraines.
Anne, in terms of material available, we were very limited and still are, by our quarantine laws which makes it horrendously expensive to import daffodils into Australia. We were fortunate that Rod Barwick had a lot of good quality miniatures available that we used for hybridising. A lot of our early crosses were similar to Rod's simply because we were using the same parents or his seedlings. We have been using our own seedlings for many years now. We have had our own very distinctive seedlings for many years now. We have a lot of good miniature seedlings that are unlikely to ever make it to the UK unless we sell them to some of our US customers. We hybridise on a very large scale so the odds of getting something good are increased. We are doing a lot of hybridising using our own fertile jonquilla and triandus seedlings. I have no doubt that access to our seedlings would save a lot of work for other hybridists. However, it likely that Fermi will be one of the few to get some of our seedlings!!
We are starting to run out of space now but I won't be doing a huge lot of crosses this year or next. However, we have a lot of seed planted out from 2016!!

[annew]

Thank you for the black! 
We all must be grateful that we can trample on the shoulders of giants. At least I think that's how it goes....

[annew]

Some lovely seedlings there, by the way 
I'm celebrating tonight because I just finished replanting all the snowdrop seedlings so am another step nearer to playing with the daffs.

[fermi de Sousa]

Some more daffs in our garden:
1) Narcissus KB-M-5-98
2) Narcissus hispanicus
3 & 4) Narcissus (maybe) wilkommii
5) more lemon "hoops"
cheers
fermi

[annew]

Yellow fever! Lovely.

[fermi de Sousa]

More daffs in flower:
1) Narcissus 07/18D ['Pink China' x "Perberdy" ('Swagger' x Narcissus cyclamenius)]
2) Narcissus KB-M-16-2000 ['Snook' x 'Nanty']
3) Narcissus 'Mite'
4) Narcissus sdg #2 KS-3-2013
5) Narcissus KB-M-34-2000
cheers
fermi