Daffodils in the Southern Hemisphere - 2007

[Mini-daffs]

 
Hi
Luc, 5 cm is not an unusual height for our miniatures. Look through the photos I have posted and you will see just how small some of our flowers are. 15cm is a tall miniature for us. 10 cm is the height of a normal miniature. 2-5cm is the height of our micro minis. Occasionally we get it wrong and the flower flowers at ground level (see attached photo). I also find stem heights of 1 cm a little too short. They are very difficult to work with. My forceps are equally tiny and almost as expensive as our flowers.
Nearly all the flowers in the  photos I have posted would be less than 4 cm in diameter. The photos are to that extent quite misleading. That is why I have occasionally posted photos of them in their pots or boxes. I thought you had made a mistake about their size when you said you would not mind a clump of them. The largest flowers I have posted photos of are N. pseudonarcissus moschatus and N. eugeniae. They are intermediate sized flowers compared to the modern standard hybrids.
I will try and post a photo of something to truly drool over tomorrow evening.

[Mini-daffs]

 
Hi
I thought I only had one flower to truly drool over but I don't think that is correct. I will let you judge.
Maggie I have a N. fernandesii lookalike but I messed up because it is white rather than yellow!!
 

[Maggi Young]

This is a super selection of flowers, Graham. I'm getting quite keen on the pink ones now.
You still haven't explained why you suggested that you preferred sterile hybrids... ??

[Mini-daffs]

 
Hi
Maggie you don't want to develop tastes that are quite that expensive!! But then again everything in that group is expensive.
Selection is easy when it comes to miniature 6W-Ps. See the photo of the seedling box.
Luc's clumping miniature is also shown in its full glory in its seedling box!!
Too many petals is preferable to too few!!

[Mini-daffs]

 
Hi
A few more photos.
You will some wet program 6W-P's that are not miniature but bear a strong resemblance to some of our miniatures. They are what can happen with N. cyclamineus as the seed parent. N. cyclamineus is not a dwarfing parent.

[Luc Gilgemyn]

Graham,
you don't stop amazing us all with these unbelievable little beauties.
I don't know what to drool over first... 
I wouldn't mind a clump(let) of any of them - these pinkish specimen are superb.
Many thanks for showing them - that gives us the time to consider a bank robbery 

[annew]

   I quite like the twisted petalled ones, and the pinks are (almost) starting to appeal too.

[Mini-daffs]

 
Hi
Anne, twisted petals are a BIG no no in exhibition flowers. We don't have many seedlings with twisted petals and I work to breed the twisted petals from any progeny. Complex but we can do it fairly easily these days.
Kind regards
Graham

[Lesley Cox]

Maggi, I may be doing Graham a terrible injustice here but I wondered about sterile hybs too, and thought it was perhaps a case of not letting opposition have access to the best things. Can't use them if they're sterile. Understandable if so, and if one is breeding for a living - if you see what I mean

[Mini-daffs]

 
Hi
Lesley, our competition is Glenbrook Bulb Farm and Rod has the skill and breeding stock to match us if he were so inclined. He has lots of nice stuff as Fermi's postings show. We grow nearly all of his flowers but I only post photos of our flowers. The other thing is that we regard him as our mentor. Some of our best hybrids have his flowers in their parentage. He is a more left field hybridiser than I am (the parentage of Snook is a case in point and we have some of his involved seedlings where the parentage is nothing short of brilliant). I tend to be a methodical and boring hybridiser who does things on a large scale so the odds are with me. The ability to breed miniature pinks is very much an odds game if you know what you are doing.
Hybridisers often share breeding stock that is not publicly available. We have an all apricot standard flower. Not exhibition quality but it is one of the few all pink flowers around. Very valuable but since it is not what we do we sent one to Dr John Reed who, besides being a friend, is one of the major hybridisers in the US.
What may not be readily apparent is that if you have a pink miniature jonquilla and you want to produce more nice pink miniature seedlings the easiest way to do so is to breed sterile hybrids. You cross the fertile pink with N. dubius, N. waterii or N.atlanticus. In our case we could use one of our white miniatures. N. dubius is a good breeder for colour. The hard way to do it is to go down the fertile route. A lot longer process because the odds are much lower.

[Martin Baxendale]

Anne, I was also going to post to say that I liked the seedling with the twisted petals. I thought it added interest to the flower, even though I know it's not considered desirable for show daffs. But I copped out. Now I can own up to liking the twisted petals as you came out first! 

[mark smyth]

I think us folk really like what the breeders hate. At Brian Duncans this year he was pointing out problems that an ordinary grower wouldnt see

[annew]

The growers are missing out on an opportunity here - sell the redundant ones which have nice little touches of character to we alpine types who like more natural things, then the boring, standard stuff for a lot of money to the daffodil exhibitors!

[mark smyth]

I know a plant breeder who composts his rejects

If only Graham was closer we could could organise a trip in 2008

[Lesley Cox]

It's understandable that we who are not plant breeders want the breeders' rejects, as many are lovely things but I imagine the breeders would prefer if what they see as inferior, were not to be spread around. If one is searching for perfection in whatever field, the less than perfect should be dumped. It's all a matter of perception. What is imperfect to the breeder may be delightful and beautiful to a mere gardener who may see the "perfect" plant as overbred or too-man made; further away from the "wild" plant which, in general, is what alpine growers would prefer.

Composting the rejects is a common practice among iris breeders at least. Or burning them so as to prevent pests and diseases speading from one plant to others.