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Discussions about anything related to Venus Flytraps, cultivars and named clones

Moderator: Matt

By Mufasa
Posts:  858
Joined:  Sun Feb 23, 2014 4:45 am
#247875
Sup all, this is something i'm interested in, methods behind selective breeding, and breeding programs, like the ones that have produced the FTS original cultivars.

i'm curious what are the main contributing factors to generating a notable plant, does selective breeding, and successive generation produce the most unique cultivars, or are alot of them, attributed to sheer luck, or germinating many thousands of seeds

is it mainly "these two plants have cool traits, i'll cross them, and see which ones are passed on", is it "i'll grow thousands of seeds, and see which ones are notable", or is there some partially reproducible science behind it?

cheers
By kronos1996
Posts:  515
Joined:  Thu Sep 13, 2012 2:23 pm
#247884
Matt should be a wealth of information on the topic. Dionaea is interesting because unlike most plants the children do not duplicate the parents characteristics very dependably. So even under controlled circumstances trying to make new cultivars is pissing in the wind at best. All you could do is make the chances of getting interesting babies a bit higher I guess.


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By Mufasa
Posts:  858
Joined:  Sun Feb 23, 2014 4:45 am
#247899
Yeah, i'm thinking it might be a good idea to buy a ton of cultivar x self seeds, and start from there, if anyone has any notable ones, i'm happy to pay for them.
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By Matt
Location: 
Posts:  22522
Joined:  Mon Apr 21, 2008 11:28 pm
#247926
Dionae wrote:Luck, luck, luck! Starting with stellar parents helps but its really a roll of the dice. Ive found that numbers are the key. Grow out tons of seedlings and youll find a couple really special plants.
This pretty much sums it up.

I'd go so far to say that starting with stellar parents is a must. Otherwise the odds of getting something really special is almost 0%.

Grow thousands of seeds and odds are that you'll get a few that are unique enough to name. Of course, the process of deciding if a particular plant is unique is somewhat subjective, as evidenced by dozens of named flytraps that I personally don't believe to be all that unique. Of course, that's just one person's opinion and certainly doesn't preclude someone from naming any plant they want :)
Matt, Matt liked this
By Mufasa
Posts:  858
Joined:  Sun Feb 23, 2014 4:45 am
#248055
Matt wrote:
Dionae wrote:Luck, luck, luck! Starting with stellar parents helps but its really a roll of the dice. Ive found that numbers are the key. Grow out tons of seedlings and youll find a couple really special plants.
This pretty much sums it up.

I'd go so far to say that starting with stellar parents is a must. Otherwise the odds of getting something really special is almost 0%.

Grow thousands of seeds and odds are that you'll get a few that are unique enough to name. Of course, the process of deciding if a particular plant is unique is somewhat subjective, as evidenced by dozens of named flytraps that I personally don't believe to be all that unique. Of course, that's just one person's opinion and certainly doesn't preclude someone from naming any plant they want :)
Cheers, yeah, i've noticed alot when looking through cpphotofinder, alot of the plants just look typical to me lol.

i think i'm going to order in a large number of cultivar x self seeds, and try to tissue culture all of them, should give me a good genetics base to work with :P

here's the list of cultivars (seeds) i have in mind right now

kayan
mirror
galaxy
fondue
Funnel Trap
Short Teeth
Triton
Umgekrempelt
Werewolf
Adantata

would be awesome to find some cudo x cudo or cheerleader x cheerleader also, but what can i do
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By SFLguy
Posts:  1726
Joined:  Wed Apr 16, 2014 7:29 am
#248161
Mufasa wrote:
Matt wrote:
Dionae wrote:Luck, luck, luck! Starting with stellar parents helps but its really a roll of the dice. Ive found that numbers are the key. Grow out tons of seedlings and youll find a couple really special plants.
This pretty much sums it up.

I'd go so far to say that starting with stellar parents is a must. Otherwise the odds of getting something really special is almost 0%.

Grow thousands of seeds and odds are that you'll get a few that are unique enough to name. Of course, the process of deciding if a particular plant is unique is somewhat subjective, as evidenced by dozens of named flytraps that I personally don't believe to be all that unique. Of course, that's just one person's opinion and certainly doesn't preclude someone from naming any plant they want :)
Cheers, yeah, i've noticed alot when looking through cpphotofinder, alot of the plants just look typical to me lol.

i think i'm going to order in a large number of cultivar x self seeds, and try to tissue culture all of them, should give me a good genetics base to work with Image

here's the list of cultivars (seeds) i have in mind right now

kayan
mirror
galaxy
fondue
Funnel Trap
Short Teeth
Triton
Umgekrempelt
Werewolf
Adantata

would be awesome to find some cudo x cudo or cheerleader x cheerleader also, but what can i do
Supposedly selfed seeds are not good growers
By katya_dog1
Posts:  2412
Joined:  Sat Aug 09, 2014 1:45 pm
#248162
I agree; my selfed seed pods didn't produce as many seeds, and were pretty weak and late germinating compared to the cross pollinated seeds. I don't know if this was coincidence, but I would recommend cross pollinating if at all possible.
Last edited by katya_dog1 on Tue Oct 20, 2015 1:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.
By katya_dog1
Posts:  2412
Joined:  Sat Aug 09, 2014 1:45 pm
#248163
Um, I actually think I should add this: To my knowledge, when you self a plant, you are taking the plants' pollen and placing it on the pistil of the same plants' flowers.

What I understood from this is that you are taking pollen from a flower on one VFT, and transferring that pollen to a receptive pistil on another flower of the same plant.

To cross a plant, which I believe is what Mufasa is saying, you take two VFTs, whether of the same cultivar or not, and you transfer pollen from the flower of one plant onto the receptive pistil of the flower on the other plant.

So, if Mufasa is buying Galaxy x Galaxy labeled seeds, what he would want to do is ask and make sure that the seeds came from a cross between two different plants of the same cultivar.

I'm not sure if this will make any difference from selfing, as two Galaxy plants are genetically identical, but I have not done any significant study of this so I wouldn't know.

See what Matt says.
By kronos1996
Posts:  515
Joined:  Thu Sep 13, 2012 2:23 pm
#248168
katya_dog1 wrote:Um, I actually think I should add this: To my knowledge, when you self a plant, you are taking the plants' pollen and placing it on the pistil of the same plants' flowers.

What I understood from this is that you are taking pollen from a flower on one VFT, and transferring that pollen to a receptive pistil on another flower of the same plant.

To cross a plant, which I believe is what Mufasa is saying, you take two VFTs, whether of the same cultivar or not, and you transfer pollen from the flower of one plant onto the receptive pistil of the flower on the other plant.

So, if Mufasa is buying Galaxy x Galaxy labeled seeds, what he would want to do is ask and make sure that the seeds came from a cross between two different plants of the same cultivar.

I'm not sure if this will make any difference from selfing, as two Galaxy plants are genetically identical, but I have not done any significant study of this so I wouldn't know.

See what Matt says.
I'm gonna say no, it doesn't matter. You'll notice with fruiting trees and bushes you need two or more varieties to get a good crop because they are of course all grafted clones. The number on 'Pink Lemonade' plants you have, for example, doesn't matter because all of the pollen is genetically identical.

So I base my reply off what we know of other plant species, which doesn't necessarily mean I'm right mind you.

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By katya_dog1
Posts:  2412
Joined:  Sat Aug 09, 2014 1:45 pm
#248173
Yep, that's what I figured, but having never done/seen anything to prove it for VFTs, I didn't know. Apple trees are a prime example of what you just stated in your post, as to get good fruit set you must pollinate with pollen from an entirely different (genetically) apple tree.

Personally I'm with you on that subject. Since the plants are genetically identical, difference = nothing. To my mind at least.
User avatar
By SFLguy
Posts:  1726
Joined:  Wed Apr 16, 2014 7:29 am
#248190
way I understand it is that selfed plants are generally weaker, however they have a much higher chance of developing new traits I.e fused teeth, antho free coloring, variegation, etc etc
That's why I see selling plants as interesting breeding material
By Mufasa
Posts:  858
Joined:  Sun Feb 23, 2014 4:45 am
#248198
making sure they are from different plants from the same cultivar will make no difference at all, since they are genetically identical... besides, i would have no control over it, number of seeds produced isn't my issue either, since i'm just buying them

also, i've never had a problem growing x self seeds before, they seem to do just as well as any other seeds in my opinion..l although my experience is limited, grown 2 lots of 50-100 x self seeds, and 3 lots of 50-100 x other seeds, at least germination, i don't notice any weakness or loss of fitness.

i really doubt you would notice weakness, or loss of fitness within one x self generation, since despite the evolutionary adaptations of this plant, it would still be significantly common in the wild.
By katya_dog1
Posts:  2412
Joined:  Sat Aug 09, 2014 1:45 pm
#248201
katya_dog1 wrote:I agree; my selfed seed pods didn't produce as many seeds, and were pretty weak and late germinating compared to the cross pollinated seeds. I don't know if this was coincidence, but I would recommend cross pollinating if at all possible.
As you can see, in my original post I stated that it might have been coincidence. I myself have had no large amount of up close experience with getting seeds from VFTs, I merely found what I had stated to be what happened in my particular seed batch from this year.

My selfed seeds have no problems now, again you will see that in my earlier post I referred only to germination and immediate growth, not continuous growth after that. Within three weeks after germination, the selfed seeds look exactly like the cross pollinated seeds at three weeks of age.

Sexual reproduction in VFTs is a very interesting subject to me, in all aspects from pollination to germination and growth of the seedlings. This is one of the main reasons I am doing my reverse dormancy project.

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