TiAl «Seed Service ~~: 
23-25 Warren St. N.Y. 7, N.Y. 
: BArclay 7-1966 
Howard Bodger, seedsman, unfolds the new .“magic” in flowers known technically 
DISCOVER 
Carnival 
FAMILY TREE 
ee 
! INBRED LINES x 
Fo CARNIVAL PETUNIAS 
Selected petunias were inbred to stabilize 
desirable characteristics, then crossed to 
achieve vigor.End result is an outstanding 
range of vivid color 
PETUNIA 
CARNIVAL This select mixture of sec- 
ond-generation hybrids includes large 
plain. waved and ruffled grandiflora-type 
blooms. All important petunia colors are 
here—blue, white, crimson, salmon, pink, 
creamy pink—and in addition to these 
there are variegated blooms of white and 
rose, white and pink, and white and blue. 
Plants are compact, 12-15 inches high, 
and spread 2 feet. Pkts. 25c & 50c 
- inbreds had come. 
° 
RANIUM 236 is a_ scientists 
designation which has become 
widely known and _ recognized 
because of its vast importance in human 
affairs, and in a similar way (without 
the ominous overtones) the genetic sym- 
bols F,; and F, have escaped from the 
plant breeders’ lingo into public use. 
There’s nothing mysterious about 
these symbols—they simply designate 
the generation, like father, son and 
grandson. F, means first filial genera- 
tion and has come to be accepted as 
the first generation following the con- 
trolled cross pollination of inbréd lines. 
F, is the second generation, or seed 
harvested from the F, crop. 
But while there is no mystery about 
the symbols, there is plenty to wonder 
about in the process of hybridization, 
itself. About forty or forty-five years 
ago geneticists discovered that if corn 
were inbred (the pollen from the tassel 
placed on the silk of the ear shoot on the 
same plant) for several generations the 
lines were weakened but became ex- 
tremely uniform. All the plants looked 
alike in height, color, maturity and gen- 
eral performance. But if two of these 
inbred lines were crossed (by taking the 
pollen from one and placing it on the 
silk of another) then something re- 
markable happened. The offspring in 
the next generation, the F,, was larger, 
more vigorous and decidedly more pro- 
lific than. either of the parents or the 
open-poliinated strain from which the 
The phenomenon 
was called hybrid vigor. 
From this example of a genetic prin- 
- ciple, commercial applications came first 
in vegetable crops such as cucumbers, 
melons, tomatoes and onions and, more 
recently, in flowers. The recent strong 
interest in petunias over the country 
results from the introduction of F, 
hybrids of plainly evident superiority 
over standard lines. The All-America 
Selections are heavily loaded with pe- 
tunia entries, and some outstanding 
new F, hybrids, such as BALLERINA and 
COMANCHE, have already received high 
awards. 
What comes after F,? Well, F, 
comes next, of course, with an endless 
line of generations off into the future. 
But it isn’t as easy as all that, and farm- 
ers learned rapidly that in the case of 
hybrid corn planting even the planting 
of the second generation was not good 
practice. The hybrid vigor was reduced 
and uniformity was lost. Succeeding 
generations became no better than open 
pollinated strains, and were often worse. 
The Mendelian law, which governs 
the way in which a hybrid will separate 
into its components in the second gen- 
eration, is just as reliable as the law of 
gravitation when the characteristics of 
the inbred parents are _ thoroughly 
known. There is no advantage in know- 
ing how many corn plants will have 
green silks and how many red silks in 
the. F.,. It is a lot more important to 
know that its uniformity and yielding 
capabilities are lessened. But in petu- 
nias, on the contrary, it is extremely in- 
teresting to know just what percentage 
of the second generation will bear pink 
flowers, what percentage rose, what per- 
centage variegated, and so on. Here the 
segregation is not a disadvantage; it is a 
great breeding tool. 
For instance, if a stable inbred with a 
pink flower is crossed with a similar 
inbred with a blue flower, the resulting 
F, will have uniformly magenta blooms. 
Seed saved from this F, will segregate 
in the Fy, to provide one-fourth pink 
flowers, one-fourth blue flowers and 
one-half flowers of varying shades of 
magenta, from near pink to near blue 
and all of the many degrees between. 
It happens that magenta is a color 
not popular in petunias so the wise 
breeder avoids combinations which will 
produce this result. He can do this in 
the F, and in the Fy, but his control is 
lost after that point; since magenta is 
a normal species color in petunias and 
is dominant over other colors, this is 
the shade that appears in the F., not 
exclusively, but heavily enough to make 
a very unpleasant mixture. This is true 
even though not a single magenta flower 
appeared in the inbreds, F; or Fy. 
New to the flower garden, and an ap- 
plication of the breeding techniques 
just discussed, is the F, hybrid called 
CARNIVAL petunia. This petunia is of 
the grandiflora type, with 80 per cent of 
the blooms about 3% inches across and 
20 per cent slightly smaller. Petals are 
waved, ruffled or fringed, and have the 
heavy substance and durability of the 
grandiflora type. 
In this new petunia is a perfect ex- 
ample of science in the flower seed in- 
dustry, for this is an application of 
principles previously ignored or un- 
known. Mixed colors in petunias are 
normally made up of blends of different 
petunia varieties. They must be grown 
separately and blended to form the mix- 
QUININE ULLAL 
