Johann's Garden

 There are many wonderful named selections of European black elderberries ( Sambucus nigra ) selected for either productivity of berries or for ornamental use.  One area that has been underdeveloped despite the great potential is the selection of dual purpose elderberries which combine both ornamental traits such as cut-leaf/lace-leaf and or purple or variegated foliage with larger berry size and increased self fertility to ensure heavy fruit set.   In order to pursue these goals it is useful to understand the genetics controlling the various traits.  Following is what I have been able to determine: Cut-leaf/lace-leaf type - When crossing two cut-leaf elderberry clones I found that 100% of the resulting offspring expressed this trait.  The first true leaves to develop after germination didn't fully express this morphological variation, but as seedlings became well developed the foliage uniformly became heavily dissected like the parent plants.  Alternative...

The following is intended to document my breeding progress with perennial Helianthus (sunflowers).  It will be updated as progress is made. Due to the differing ploidies between species it is important to document and track ploidy of each parent in a cross to predict the most likely resulting ploidy in offspring so that multiple generations of breeding work can be accomplished without running into dead ends with mismatched chromosome counts.  Ploidies of 2n=2x, 2n=4x and 2n=6x are generally fertile to varying degrees while ploidies of 3x and 5x are generally infertile. The following is a list of Helianthus species, hybrids or selections currently being used as foundation stock in my breeding efforts: Helianthus ×laetiflorus 'Lemon Queen' (2n=6x) - heavily branching with exceptionally heavy flower production of pale lemon yellow flowers. Helianthus maximiliani  PI 592333 (2n=2x) - from wild seed collected in Manitoba, Canada.  I kept only one seedli...