Falling in Love with Wasps:I fell in love with wasps the first
time I saw one -- they have such an elegant and delicate flower shape. I'm
working on several different wasps right now -- a yellow wasp, a red wasp, an
improved green-edged white wasp, and a fantasy wasp. The yellow has been the
toughest so far, but I'm hopeful that the batch of seedlings that I'm growing
out right now might have the first one or two hopefuls.
My ideal wasp right now
would be a bright solid yellow blossom held high above very dark green,
red-backed foliage and maybe throw in some pink or blue fantasy specks just for
fun. I'd guess that this is still three or four crosses off in the future from
where I'm at right now.
Wasps and bustled
foliage seem to be linked very tightly genetically. I have yet to see
a plant with bustled foliage that did not have a wasp flower, although I do have
several plants that have wasp flowers with non-bustled or minimally-bustled
foliage. Bustled foliage is very interesting and pretty to look at, but usually
does not form a well-behaved rosette. Most of my hybridizing with wasps right
now is with the non-bustled foliage in the hopes of getting a plant that has
both wasp flowers and well-behaved foliage. I don't personally show African
Violets, but it would be nice to have some wasp varieties that behave well
enough to be shown should someone want to.
 There are a couple of my new wasp
varieties that I would like to register with AVSA in the near future -- one is
the green-edged white wasp ( pictured on the background of this article),
and the other is a girl-foliage wasp that forms a nice rosette and holds the
blossoms up nice and high. There are a few others that I'm still growing out
before deciding.
Hybridizing Goals:
 I'm a big fan of exotic
looking violets. I'm presently working on heavily lobed girl foliage. Solid
yellow flowers are up there at the top of the list, and a solid yellow wasp is at the very
top. As far as non-wasps go, I'm working on yellows, bell-shaped blossoms,
longifolia and 'Project X' -- sorry, can't say any more about it than that right
now!
Alchemy
Gold
The mechanics of
hybridizing are really pretty simple. Get some pollen to the right place at the
right time, and there you have it. I think that what is most important is to
have a specific goal in mind when you start, and to be willing and able to throw
out lots and lots of plants that don't meet that goal. Limited shelf space is
great at forcing that discipline on you. That being said, if something really
special comes along that was not part of the original goal, don't miss
it!
MOST of my crosses are
goal oriented -- that is, one parent has one trait, the other parent has another
and hopefully a couple of the seedlings or the F2s will have both traits. Some
of my crosses, though, are intentionally done as pure curiosities. I like to
take two very different plants and cross them just to see what will come up.
Some of my favorite plants have come from these 'what if' crosses.
Except in
cases where I'm growing specifically for foliage (longifolia in my case) I do
grow almost all of my plants out from seed to full bloom. It usually takes four
to six months from pollination to viable seed, and then another three to six
months to first bloom.
Most of
my plants are either semi-minis or minis, so I don't ever throw one out just for
being small. If I have a plant that is not growing well or appears to be
stunted, I'll usually repot it or put down a leaf just to see if it is the plant
itself or how I was growing it that was the problem.
I'm amazed at how often
violets will mutate or sport, and at how much material there is out there to
work with. I love setting a hybridizing goal, picking the 'parents', and growing
out the crosses to get to there, but one of the very best parts of hybridizing
are the unexpected 'gems' that pop up from time-to-time that had absolutely
nothing to do with the original goal.
I've had a few unexpected and
interesting results along the way -- the most recent, and one I'm still growing
out to see where it goes, is a girl-leaf violet that branches. Some of the
leaves have branched as many as five times already. Each successive branch grows
a couple more leaves that in turn, branch themselves. It may be a dead-end
genetically, though, since it has yet to flower. I've put down a few leaves to
see if I can force a flower using a bloom-booster fertilizer.
When hybridizing wasps,
you never know what you will get. Wasps come in LOTS of different shapes -- some
have petals that look like long, skinny tubes with flared ends ('horned' wasps), some have the
typical wasp petals, but they refuse to open up completely (quite frustrating
when you can see that the inside is just what you were shooting for!), and
others can't decide whether to be wasps or just plain old pansies. And just like
the yellows, it seems that my favorite ones are always the ones that are most
difficult to use in crosses. The other difficult thing with wasps is that the
foliage is often bustled which means that it will not form a nice even
rosette.
David's Hybridizing Methods:
I do not remove the anthers of a seed
parent when I'm pollinating unless there is a pest problem, self-pollinations
are very rare with African Violets. I use a petal from a flower to apply the
pollen. I hold the petal in a pair a surgical clamps so that it doesn't fall. It
is a very effective method of picking up even small amounts of pollen and
getting them to the stigma without doing any damage to it. I usually pollinate as many blossoms on the same plant as possible. Some plants are
very easy to get to set, others are surprisingly difficult. The more you
pollinate the better your odds. Also, the more pods that set on a plant, the
better they all seem to do in my experience.
Blossoms With
Veining
I leave the pods on the plant until
they are dry and hard. If pods dry in less than four months, odds are that the
seed will not be viable. I'll still plant whatever comes out of the pod if it
dries in less than four months, though, as I've had a few pods produce viable
seed in as little as three months there's no harm in trying. Some seed pods will
have hundreds of seeds -- they just keep pouring out -- and others will have
none at all. I've had several crosses where only one single seedling sprouted
out of three or four seedpods.
 If I have a plant that
looks promising and it is an intermediate, I will often pollinate the first
bloom the plant ever had. You can always throw it out later if you change your
mind, but when you're looking at upwards of a year per generation, any time
savings you can find have to be taken advantage of.
I keep about one in twenty
five plants as intermediates (plants that aren't final products, but that do
have some or most of the traits that I'm looking for), and something around one
in fifty to one in a hundred are keepers. LOTS of crosses are complete duds --
no keepers in the entire lot.
 Right
now, I'm working on a batch of new wasps that are intermediates. Most of them
are some type of fantasy wasp. For some reason I haven't gotten one yet with a
really pretty flower AND nice foliage, just one or the other. The next
generation, which I'm now growing out should have some potential keepers. Same
story with the reds and yellows -- lots of hopeful seedlings to evaluate this
summer.
Growing Methods and Pests:
As far as growing methods
go, I'm still trying new things to find what works better than my current
set-up, but the system right now is a pretty basic potting mix (1 part each peat
moss, perlite and vermiculite, a little superphosphate, some dolomite lime to
raise the pH).
I bottom water every two to three days
and grow under flourescent lights. I have one room with a humidifier that stays
at about 50% R.H., but the rest of my plants have to tolerate whatever the rest
of us in the house do -- usually something in the range of 25-35% R.H. The
temperature varies quite a bit in Southern California from Winter to Summer. In
the winter the temperature ranges from about 60F at night up to about 75F during
the day, but in the summer we're lucky to fall to 70F at night, and often hit
90F during the day on the light stands. The plants get quite a stress
test.
When it comes to pests,
thrips have been my only real problem, and they are more of a recurring nuisance
than a disaster. I can eradicate them for periods of time, but the little
critters always seem to find a way in, and then the whole process starts again.
Knock on wood, no mites yet or soil mealies or anything like that. My cat has
done more damage than any other pest, now that I come to think of it...
A Few
Favorites and Some Advice:
Of the wasps that I've seen or grown,
Celery has to be near the top of my list of favorites -- it is such an unusual
plant. The foliage is wild and unpredictable, and the wasps, when they decide to
bless you with their presence, are great examples of what a wasp flower should
look like.
I have a few older violets that I plan
on keeping for as long as I'm growing – Celery, of course, is at the top of the
list, then a couple of non-wasps -- Nancy Leigh and Elizabethan Ruffle (a great
longifolia plant). I think that everyone should make an effort to grow one of
the heirloom violets in order to help preserve some of the great older hybrids.
I'd also highly recommend that everybody have one of their very own hybrids in
their collection -- a plant that they know is unique in the world and their own
creation. Beyond that, there are so many great violets out there it's hard to
make a single recommendation. I don't really have a favorite hybridizer -- there
are a lot of really great hybridizers out there and I probably have one or two
favorite plants from most of them.
For those beginning with
violets, first and foremost, beware of the potential for a violet invasion! It's
amazing how quickly one plant becomes ten and ten become a hundred. You don't
HAVE to propagate every leaf that you remove! Beyond that, just have fun, try
new things, don't be afraid of doing the wrong thing (they'll take a beating and
still forgive you!). And by all means, pick some parents and try crossing them
-- growing African Violets from seeds that you have crossed is one of the most
rewarding experiences you can have in the hobby.
David,
we would like to thank you for taking the time to tell us about your unique
hybrids. We look forward to hearing more in the future. -- The Violet
Voice
Original Page Design and Interview Editing by Alana Feb/2005 |
