Bretts wrote:We are on a roll with our young horticulturests tonight.
Excellent advice JC. I was talking about this with Jarrod the other day in chat and started to doubt what I had read in Deborah Koreshoff's book about branch sports that cuttings could be taken off to create a variation to the species.
I am unsure if hybridisation is the right word for this though. I may be wrong but I relate that to seed variation or even cross polination.
Brett, still got a few years to go before im a hort yet!
Do you remember how Peter Adams referred to your pine as a "witches broom"? That is another way that a new cultivar (cultivated variety) can come about. This is a really interesting phenomenon.
Cuttings taken of sported branches often do keep those characteristics. That is how sao to me azaleas came about. Sometimes, those azaleas (which aren't meant to flower) revert back in a single part of the plant, and a flower can be sent up. It needs to be pruned back otherwise the leaves that grow from that part of the plant will enlarge, and the regular azalea will out-compete the sao to me, and it will die back. The form of trident maple that has the curled leaves and looks like its dried out was also a sport from a branch, according to Clinton Nesci, though i cant remember the name of it. These are cultivars.
Cross pollination is the only way to achieve hybridisation in plants that i am aware of. However, hybridisation can occur within a species (I.E. crossing a red and a yellow rose to create an orange rose) or within a genus, but different species (I.E. Triticale, which is a grain that is a cross between wheat and rye). There are some really odd plants that can hybridise through different genus. The most commonly known is the leyland cypress commonly sold as a hedge labeled as "Leyton Green". When this hybrid came about, horticulturists assumed it would grow to about 40 metres, so they marketed it as a hedge. But because of "Hybrid Vigor", this tree has been found to grow to 20 metres. Hybridisation is alot more complicated than this, due to dominant/recessive genes and other factors, but that is essentially what happens.
Witches Brooms:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch%27s_broom
Cultivars:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultivar
Hybridisation:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_(biology" )
Hybrid Vigor:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_vigor
JayC
Has anyone on this forum crossed two existing species to create a new one? If so, what is the process involved in having it registered and authenticated? Is it a long process? Is it costly? Which particular body do you contact to do this?
