🚀 go-pugleaf

F. Clayton Rote wrote:
> 
> I have a 7 year old daughter that I would like to learn about genetics
> with.
> 
> She and her mother love the garden so I thought I would work a genetic
> experement into their plants.
> 
> I heared that you could breed roses and get predictable - an visibly
> significant results.  Unfortunately, I know nothing about the birds and
> the bees as it applies to roses.
> 
> Is there anyone out there that might know of a resource for instructions
> on such an experement, or any other experement that would be fun and
> educational for us?  I am envisioning sort of a cook book for breeding
> roses coving topics like:
> 
>         o       selecting the roses (how to tell a male from female!?!)
> 
>         o       how to controll their breeding
> 
>         o       timing for all thse events, etc.
> 
> Thank you in advance for any assistance.
> 
> Clayton Rote



I'd say you ought to go with sweet-peas, or with another annual such
as California poppy. For one thing, these will give you much faster
results than a rose bush might, and it is fairly simple to watch the
genes segregate. Since I'm a geneticist by training, I tend to like to
choose annuals with odd morphological traits for my garden, and watch
them do their thing. These odd morphological traits should represent 
easy to follow genetic variants.  Cosmos sea-shells, is fun since the 
petals fuse into tubes. Haven't noticed the results from a cross with 
the usual "wildtype" cosmoss flowers. I did choose some butter yellow 
Ca. Poppies a couple of years ago. The results of crossing naturally
with the normal ca poppies were very intersting. Flowers still 
maintaining the pale color tended to be small, actually the plants were
on the small side too. THe butter yellow color was lost in this second
generation, reverting to a sort of white-ish flower and the wildtype
golden-orange color. It hinted at being two genes, although I didn't do
the numbers, since some pale flowers were large while most were small. 
Of course the simplest thing would be to recapitualte some of Mendel's 
stuff- with sweet peas you can indeed look at traits of flower color,
and seed color and morphology.

With roses, you'll probably be waiting a long time for the progeny to
bloom. Plus I understand most varieties are sterile- you will obviously
need fertile rose hips.... One supposed trick is to stay away from 
the "double" blossoms, which are supposedly tetraploid and frequently
sterile (at least generally true of other flowers- ever wonder why
the doubles are so long lasting in a vase or on the bush???? doesn't 
know it's been pollinated and so doesn't recieve the signal to start
with the seed production. sterile flowers are long lasting and pretty.)

As for your questions: how to tell a male from a female???? Well, I've
never bred a rose, or looked down their genes, but as far as I know,
almost all plants excepting ginko trees and maybe cycad ferns are
BOTH!. pollen is the sperm. the stamen are the vagina. the hips are the
uterus. loosely speaking of course. 
To do the cross, you'd need to choose a flower to pollinate (it will
later produce the seeds provided it's not sterile) and then choose a
flower to harvest  pollen from to do the cross. I'd suspect a paint
brush would do the trick here . You'd need to choose the flower-motherr-
to-be early enough and cut its pollen producing parts so it won't have
the chance to "self".  THen allow the hips to form following a succesful
fertilization and then plant them and hope they germinate. then grow
up all those rose bushes and look for traits segregating. Maybe youd
cross a climber with a non climber, or a moss rose with a non. I don't
have a clue how long it will take to see the results a year? two? three?


Go with the sweet peas or poppies. Mendel was a smart cookie.


good luck!
Juliette Faraco
Human genetics student, but would do a rose-genome project if allowed...