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[sapla]

Hi all,
I would like grow several ipomea species for the next summer (about 8 : purpurea, coccinea, guamoclit, violacea, kniolas's black, violacea, scarlett...) and I would like to know if there is no risk of crossbreeding between plants and i will can harvest seeds by thinking it is the same species as I planted.

I have the same question for papaver somniferum, passiflora,nicotiana, datura, brugmansia and phalaris.

thanks for your answer.

Bye

[BubbleCat]

If you mean crossbreeding witin a (sub)species: It is perfectly viable and you may expect seeds. Dont expect the first generation to be uniform and stable in characteristics.

If you are talking about hybridization: Your odds of obtaining seeds shrink the more the species are apart taxonomically. Plus many other issues.

[Inyan]

"It was very difficult to cross Ipomoea hederacea with Ipomoea purpurea. In 1980 the author collected a lot of strains of both species each and crossbred them on a large scale, but obtained only one seed after about 2000 crossings. From that single seed, the author was able to bring up an F1 plant, which set seeds. So F2 descendants were grown. "
http://protist.i.hosei.ac.jp/Asagao/Yoneda_DB/E/relatives/04_4.html

So, viable seeds or crosses may not happen just because one wants them to or has made careful pollinations.

Datura frequently self-pollinate so regardless of insect activity... hybrids are very unlikely, but they can happen. You can be relatively sure that your seeds are not hybrids however with Datura unless you have taken the time to emasculate and remove the anthers prior to the flower opening and applied the foreign pollen yourself at that same time.

Datura on the other hand has been crossed to Brugmansia, but the successful embryo rescue of plants did not result in self-fertile offspring. Datura metel var. chlorantha will readily hybridize with Datura metel var. fastuosa however and the resulting flowers are most often co-dominant in color.

Datura wrightii and Datura inoxia both make excellent pollen donors when bred to Datura metel and many seed pods may form. However, many pods may also abort and the number of seeds that make it to maturity within a pod are generally greatly decreased in my experience.

Datura stramonium will cross to Datura ferox.

Brugmansia are not self-fertile except for B. arborea as a general rule. There are a few exceptions when dealing with individual cultivars.
Brugmansia can be divided into two main groups. A warm group consisting of Brugmansia insignis, Brugmansia aurea, Brugmansia versicolor, and Brugmansia suaveolens that can all be bred together. Brugmansia candida = Brugmansia aurea x Brugmansia versicolor and such crosses can result in a double flowered specimen if one grows out enough seedlings. Always breed like colors to like unless you want hundreds of whites and a very few in color.

Brugmansia cold group... consists of Brugmansia flava, Brugmansia sanguinea, Brugmansia vulcanicola, Brugmansia arborea. Note; flava = Brugmansia sanguinea x Brugmansia arborea. I have only been able to get Brugmansia arborea cultivar "Ida" to grow and bloom profusely in Florida as most warm group Brugmansia simply perish soon after being planted in Florida. I am currently growing a single Brugmansia arborea from seed out of several thousand that has been able to withstand the heat and humidity where I am currently located as I lost "Ida" when I moved over seas.

I have been able to get seed pods on Datura X Brugmansia can often result in seed pods, but the seeds themselves will more often times than not abort when still very tiny and if you did intend on making this cross and actually growing them out you would need to rescue them long before the seeds start to shrivel and then grow on some kind of agar media. My understanding again is that all such crosses would not be self-fertile... so you would need to different specimens to ensure even a remote possibility of making seed and you may even have to induce polyploidy via colchicine or some other chemical if you wanted to proceed further.

3 Likes Ian Morris, sapla and SKUNK like this.

[BubbleCat]

On cross breeding self pollinating plamts like papaveracea and datura:

A cross can not be obtained by simple pollination, as the plant would most ikely self pollinate before. Therefore the bud can be placed into a protective sachet, a tea bag for example. Before blooming the satchet is removed, the petals are removed and all pollen is then removed. The sachet is replaced until the remaining 'flower' is ready foe pollination. For pollination obviously the sachet is removed, the plant pollinated manually and the satchet is replaced.

It takes a lot of patience and plants.

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[Inyan]

Datura must have the anthers removed prior to the bloom opening if you want to pollinate them. However, there really is no need for a protective anything once the cross is made as pollen growth rate is understood well enough to understand that so long as no other pollen gets to the stigma within 1hr your cross is going to be what you have selected to place on the stigma. My method for making crosses for example simply involves removing all sources of compatible pollen and only allowing the species I wish to use as a donor pollen to develop fertile pollen. With only one source of pollen if an insect per say was to cross pollinate it would have to do so with the same species and flower I have selected to use for hand pollination. I will give a picture to illustrate. However, if you did have more than one species of compatible flowers in which you allowed even one flower to become fertile pollen wise then you would stand a very small chance of cross pollination in that short 1 hour period between your initial fertilization and the next by the insect that may have pollinated it. To that end, you need only cover the stigma and not the entire flower. A simple piece of tape over the stigma itself will suffice in the case of Datura or Brugmansia. There is absolutely no need to cover the entire flower.

Datura Inoxia (mom) x D. wrightii or D. inoxia will produce viable seedlings.

Datura leichhardtii (mom) x D. stramonium, quercifolia, ferox, discolor, wrightii, inoxia (pollen donors) will produce seedlings.

Datura ferox (mom) x stramonium, quercifolia, discolor... will produce seedlings

D. quercifolia x stramonium, quercifolia, ferox discolor, wrightii ... will produce viable seedlings

D. stramonium x quercifolia, ferox, discolor... will produce seedlings

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[sapla]

Thank you very much for this information, it is really very interesting;
I would like plant these differents plants and cultivars to have seeds or cuttings and then exchange them. But I would like to be sure I propose on the forum. For example, if I harvest Ipomoea coccinea seed, Datura inoxia, Papaver somniferum var nigrum seeds after a summer...and I give these seeds, I want to be sur these species are ipomea coccinea, datura inoxia, papaver somniferum var nigrum...

As the probability of crossibreeding are very very very low, I will cultivate all these plants but I will separat these species by several meters.
Thank you again for all this clarification.

[BubbleCat]

Outdoors I hust add a teabag or anything that suits for that little extra certainty. In case of indoor plants I skip that too, as theres meither strong draft nor bees.

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[Lukas123]

One can hybridize and crossbread plants by using tissue culture tecniques.
Its done by fusing protoplasts (cells without cell walls).
Im not read up on how it´s done but it´s apparently doable for amateurs in tissue culture and you dont need a fancy lab to do it.
So get your pressure cookers and babyjars and lets create some wicked plants...  :