Process of Breeding Roses...

Process of Breeding Roses

Human Mind is magic itself!

God gave this planet, and we kept on improving it year on year with the ideas that pops-up in our mind. Nature gave us the bloom of roses, and we went a step further to generate a hybrid rose.
Roses have more than 150 species around the world and thousands of hybrids. And the experiments are still on to create new hybrid roses. Some experiments fail, and some result in the new kind of bloom but every experiment of breeding roses is an effort of patience and creativity.
If you love roses and would like to have a unique one in your garden, you can also create a new hybrid rose. All that you require is a knowledge of the proper process of cross breeding roses.

Without any delay now, let us take you through the process:

Take a rose flower of colour you like and remove those petals that are not opened yet.
Leave some of the larger petals in place as it will help you locate the flower (only if you have many flowering plants in your garden) when you begin with pollinating.
In the centre of the rose flower, carefully cut the stamens that surround the pistil. Be very careful to not injure the flower’s pistil through the process.
Take a sheet of light-coloured (creamy, light pink, and white) paper and put those stamens that you cut in the last step.
Keep the stamen away from sunlight till the day pollen sacs on their ends ripen and burst.
Now drop the pollen and other plant material in a tea strainer and place an empty jar beneath it. Collect the pollen by tapping and shaking the tea strainer as per the necessity.
Label the jar in which you collected pollen to identify the plant of the pollen.
Now repeat the process all the way from the first step to collect pollen from other rose plants (you can also collect pollen from more than two plants).
When done collecting pollen from different plants, it’s time to check whether the plant is ready for pollination or not.
Take a magnifying glass and examine the pistils of the flowers.
If you see a sticky fluid on the stigmas within the pistils, it means that the flower is ready for pollination.
With the help of a plucker or pinpointed paintbrush dipped in water, take out the collected pollen from the jar and put it on the stigmas of the flower.
Don’t put pollen on the same flower plant where it was collected.
To identify the seed-bearing and pollen-donating rose plants, stick a label around the stem of the flower.
To protect the pollinated flower from the bugs and pests, cover it with the white paper bag.
Carefully remove the bag after four to five days.
Keep an eye on the growth of rose hips, the swelling behind the flower bud.
It occurs as the seeds start to develop in the ovary of a plant.
Reap the rose hips when you see a change in colour. And if you don’t see the colour change then wait for the end of the growing season.
Now it’s time to cherish the result of your efforts.
Cut and open the hips to collect the hybrid seeds.
To grow your own hybrid rose, sow the seeds and do the needful.