My little experimental subjects are continuing to grow and there are some obvious differences in growth patterns like indeterminate long internodes vs. shorter dwarf-ish internodes and height/growth rate, wispy vs spreading regular leaf, and now size of blossoms -- I'm seeing big blossoms, medium blossoms, and tiny blossoms which should be a good indicator of fruit size and other genetic traits
Among this summer season's varieties, I've attempted to make these crosses (first listed is the mother -- typically I prep and pollinate 2 blossoms):
Terhune x Ildi
(PL ind pink) x (RL ind MF yellow)
Pink Siberian Tiger x Dwarf Mr. Snow
(RL antho ind pink antho heart) x (RPL dwf white )
Dwarf Mr. Snow x Pink Siberian Tiger
(RPL dwf white ) x (RL antho ind pink antho heart)
Hawaiian Pineapple x Berner Rose
(RL ind yellow red bicolor) x (RL ind pink)
Lucky Cross x Berner Rose
(PL ind yellow red bicolor) x (RL ind pink)
Berner Rose x Dwarf Emerald giant NOT
(RL ind pink) x (RL ind yellow red bicolor)
Gritmire's Pride x Cherokee Lime Stripes
(WL ind pink heart) x (RL ind striped gwr)
Fishlake Oxheart x Maglia Rosa
(WL ind pink heart) x (WL dwf pink elongated pt)
Lucky Cross x Wes
(PL ind yellow red bicolor xlg) x (WL red heart xlg)
{MR x (ZCMWFlv) F1 dwf sm flwr} x Lucky Cross
{MR x (ZCMWFlv) F1 dwf sm flwr} x (PL ind yellow red bicolor xlg)
...some of those blossoms had fallen off the next day -- I.e. Failed to pollinate. This may have been because I put a tulle bag over them thinking I need to protect them from accidental bee or wind pollination, but it got really hot that day. For a couple of those, I repeated the same cross on another set of blossoms.
I don't know how long it takes to be sure they have fruit set. In the wintertime, some pollinated mother blossoms persisted for as much as a week before inexplicably dropping. They also still have to get through the August heat and drought and the foliage disease pressure, and produce mature fruits. (I really HAVE to get around to doing this earlier -- like as soon as 2nd set of floral trusses appear -- trouble then, though is that the trusses are way low on the plants and difficult to get to, see, and handle.... Lots to learn still
![Rolling Eyes :roll:](./images/smilies/icon_rolleyes.gif)
)
So far, I have these:
...one of the crosses I specifically wanted to attempt is same cross as Pamplemousse de Grandpere (Grandfather's Grapefruit) which was originally created by crossing Berner Rose (Rose de Berne) with Pineapple. I obtained Berner Rose seeds but failed to obtain Pineapple -- what I had was Hawaiian Pineapple
![Rolling Eyes :roll:](./images/smilies/icon_rolleyes.gif)
So I'm trying to cross them but after prepping the Berner Rose, I realized there were no Hawaiian Pineapple blossoms to supply the pollen -- I tried with another bi-color pollen donor, but yesterday, I saw that both Berner Rose blossoms had failed.
I did attempt
Hawaiian Pineapple x Berner Rose and
Lucky Cross x Berner Rose and you can see those blossoms among the pictured pollinated blossoms.
![Bouncing Happy :-()](./images/smilies/bigmsile.gif)