Seedlings from new echinacea hybrids?

[kaspian]

I'm curious whether anybody has experience of growing seedlings from any of the recent echinacea hybrids -- which, if I understand right, usually involve crosses between E. purpurea and the yellow-flowered E. paradoxa, with possibly some involvement of tennesseensis and/or pallida.

Do the seedlings closely resemble the parents, I wonder? It seems like with all those genes bouncing around -- not to mention the likelihood of cross-pollination from other, non-hybrid plants in the neighborhood

-- you might get just about anything.

I just copped a handful of seeds from a lovely, clear-yellow-flowered plant. The gardener didn't know the name of the variety, but I surmise it might have been 'Sunrise.' The form of the plant was typical of E. purpurea. (Some of the hybrids I've seen more closely resembled prairie species like pallida, with long, narrow leaves arising from a very tight clump.)

I'm looking forward to experimenting with these, though it will be a while before I have flowers to show for it, I expect.

[Laura at theGardenPages]

The only way to get the same exact plant it to root cuttings. Hybrid seeds won't grow true. Generally, the plant won't match the hybrid parent. From a Seed Company standpoint that's sort of the point of a hybrid. You can only get if from them and they can trademark their product. sorry!

[Jangchub]

While I agree the only way to duplicate a hybrid is by cutting or leaf propagation, I do not believe it is the reason seed companies do this, forcing you to buy the seed. Echinacea is a perennial, first of all and it can be divided.

[kaspian]

Yeah, I dig all that, and I'm sorry if my query was unclear. What I'm curious about is what MIGHT come out of the genetic lottery in these cases -- which is why I wondered if anybody has experience with raising seedlings from the new hybrids. As I mused above, it seems to me that with these interesting gene combinations bouncing around, you might get something unusual.

I would say strictly speaking that it can't be the *seed* companies making money from these plants, but rather the original breeders who (at least in the case of varieties protected by plant patents) control the propagation rights, and secondarily the vendors who seem to be charging $15 or so for a single plant.

Also, with regard to coming true from seed, there is the special case of F1 hybrids, which do come quite true to type as a result of laborious breeding and hand-pollination, and are priced accordingly. I used to raise geraniums from T&M seed every year, but it isn't really much cheaper than buying young plants from the garden center.

[malcolmhirst12]

If you plant seeds from hybrids you will get very varied results. Plant enough ( hundreds ? ) and you might get a few decent ones, one or two outstanding ones, and the remaining hundreds will be dire. This is how the breeders do it. They plant hundreds, find the few outstanding ones then propagate vegetatively - or aquire "sports" ( chance genetic mutations) from Joe Public and again propagate vegetatively. Not all these will be stable and may revert over time to indifferent forms.

You might complain about the prices of named hybrids, but they are very expensive to produce and a high proportion of the outlay can never be recovered as the results are not suitable for sale. Also several generations may have to be raised to reassure the grower that the cultivar is stable ( and robust enough to survive normal garden conditions).

It is like a pharmaceutical company producing a new drug - the R & D costs are immense.

.=2E......and no I do not work in horticulture - but I am happy to pay the price to get a good plant.

Malcolm

kaspian wrote:

[kaspian]

Oh, I don't know about that. I've never seen a "dire" echinacea. Many gardeners grow the straight species E. purpurea, or a seed strain derived from one of the named varieties like 'Magnus' or 'White Swan'

-- which, of course, are not identical to a vegetatively propagated specimen of that variety. Folks who are into "wild" or native North American gardening sometimes grow one of the prairie species like E. pallida or E. paradoxa. These all make attractive plants and durable garden specimens (assuming you've got anything like congenial growing conditions), even if they lack the particular selling points of their upmarket relations.

I do agree with the "varied results" part -- but I'm still curious about what KIND of variation one might expect in the offspring of a hybrid between, say, E. paradoxa and E. purpurea. The few hybrids that I've actually seen in real life all have closely resembled one parent or the other but NOT both, in terms of basic plant structure when not in bloom. It seems quite possible to me that a stand of naturalized seedlings would be rather an attractive and possibly quite striking spectacle, in an informal or meadow setting perhaps, given the possible range of colors that MIGHT arise (or might not).

So I guess, since nobody here seems actually to have tried this, I'll raise a few dozen seedlings from the plant I suspect to the 'Sunrise' and we'll just see what comes of it.