Curious - what makes one a "hybridizer"?

[Seedseller1]

I'm going to stick my nose in here one more time.

I think the term "hybridizer" has been used too generically, just like any nose tissue is a "kleenex". Maybe some of the most "well known" hybridizers are more well known for their introductions rather than their hybridizing efforts. And no disrespect Chris, but by allowing the bees to do the work and you taking it the rest of the way, you did infact allow the plant to survive, but you did not do the hybridizing--the bees did it. As far as tc mishaps being introduced making one a hybridizer is even farther from the definition because the new plant is not a hybrid at all (a combination of two plants). Interesting conversation topic and maybe I missed the reason for you asking the question in the first place, but I think we have determined the difference between a hybridizer and an intoducer and have been using the term loosely enough in the past to include both.

[Chris_W]

Hi Mike,

The purpose was just conversation. Like I've mentioned, I was scratching my head at the comment of someone "developing" a hosta, when in reality it was just a sport. Nothing to develop, definitely doesn't make someone a hybridizer in my opinion.

I appreciate the input from everyone. To clarify once again, I do not consider myself a hybridizer. I agree with the rest that this would involve making deliberate crosses and then raising the offspring. The finer points like record keeping and keeping detailed notes of the parents don't matter to me - if you are out there trying to produce hybrids, whether detailed or sloppy, both cases that person is a hybridizer in my eye.

And finally, I agree that the term has been used pretty loosely in the plant world - I was curious as to why that might be.

[Spider]

"But then we also have to look back at some of the best known hybridizers out there. Quite a few of them let the bees do their work and then grow the seeds and every once in a while find a happy accident. Did they truly hybridize the plant? Maybe not, but the plants themselves may clearly be a hybrid that they are introducing."

Well, technically they selected the plants the bees had access to (unless they are close enough to a neighbor with hostas. If bees got to my plants I "could" be called a hybridizer - there are no other hostas for dozens of miles.

But I'd go with the notion of someone who goes out and makes deliberate effort to move pollen A to plant B (whether randomly playing bee, or with a specific goal) would be a hybridizer. Basically what Mike said.

[jgh]

I think I'm going to remain agnostic on this. Remember the dictionary definitions...

Date:1845
transitive verb
: to cause to produce hybrids : interbreed
intransitive verb
: to produce hybrids

I agree that sport fishing isn't hybridizing. And I agree that deliberately making crosses is hybridizing. But I'm going to keep an open mind about whether or not a hybridizer might use open polination.

I've got Galaxy, Sea Prize, and Savannah Supreme. These are all streaked plants. Sometimes I collect the OP seeds from the streakers and grow them. I cull them. I select for interesting color and leaf characteristics. Some of the streaked seedlings I grow on for years, waiting for them to stablize. Some of those plants I split to cultivate a particular trait. I also collect OP seed from my attractive unnamed streaker babies.

Any new plant of worth that comes from that process is a hybrid. I'm the one who chose the pod parent. I'm the one who chose the babies to grow on. I'm the one who selected based on criteria. Some of these plants will be the result of two or three or four generations of OP.

I think lawyers could argue both sides of whether or not this constitutes hybridizing.

[ViolaAnn]

jgh - I think you've done an excellent summary.

[Chris_W]

Thanks again for the great discussion. I've enjoyed it, and have read back over it a couple times already. Makes me want to put on my bee suit one morning and play

[Spider]

That's something we'd want a photo of. (or not, lol)

[John]

Good points, Chris. Another thought: it is my opinion that some hybridizers may register plants with parents unknown, so as to keep that valuable information to themselves. This is of course, not true in all, or even in most cases.

A hybridizer, by whatever definition, would be a person likely to recognize and evaluate sports, perhaps more so than someone not especially interested in breeding.

[Don Rawson]

Okay,
Now that we've determined what a "hybridizer" is (or isn't), my question is: What is a "professional hybridizer" versus an "amateur hybridizer"? Awhile back I submitted an article for publication in the AHS Hosta Journal. At the end of the article, the editor added a bried caption which referred to me as an "amateur hybridizer". It didn't bother me to be called that, but I didn't know how he came up with that description of me since I don't refer to myself as an amateur or as a hybridizer. And I wondered what criteria there was to distinguish between an "amateur" versus a "professional"? Does a professional hybridizer do it full-time for a living? Does he have a degree in agriculture or botany? Does he need to be a member of a hybridizing group? Does he need to follow certain standards, make a certain number of hybrid crosses, plant a certain number of seeds, or have a certain number of hybrids registered to be considered a "professional hybridizer"? And who determines if someone is an "amateur" or a "professional" in his hybridizing work?

[lessa's dh]

I have to admit - I have thoroughly enjoyed the conversation on what seems at times (at least to some) to be a controversial subject. I am a holedigger - or an enabler as my DW calls me. Chris and the rest of you have given me something to think about for the next while.

[sugar]

Makes me want to put on my bee suit one morning and play

We want to see pics

[lessa's dh]

one of Chris' hive mates ............

[John]

Professional hybridizers would be those running a business, selling seeds and plants; amateurs are doing it for love--- in very general terms, and not accounting for some overlap.

There are amateurs who may sell some seeds or plants, often just a small amount which helps finance their hobby.

Professionals may still love their work, but are looking to make an actual profit from it.

I don't think there is necessarily any difference in the degree of competance. Some of the most brilliant and scientifically well-versed hybridizers may never sell a plant, nor even register or introduce one.

[sugar]

Professional hybridizers would be those running a business, selling seeds and plants; amateurs are doing it for love--- in very general terms, and not accounting for some overlap.

There are amateurs who may sell some seeds or plants, often just a small amount which helps finance their hobby.

Professionals may still love their work, but are looking to make an actual profit from it.

I don't think there is necessarily any difference in the degree of competance. Some of the most brilliant and scientifically well-versed hybridizers may never sell a plant, nor even register or introduce one.

Are there a lot of professional hybridizes out there? I guess most of the active hybridizers out there don't live from hosta.

[dmi188]

Well, from this discussion, I will say:
I am a Hosta Seed Grower
I am probably a Hosta Developer
and an Amateur Part time Bee!

Interesting discussion all!

[Bill Meyer]

Hi Everybody,

Just to offer my opinion (since there isn't any "official" description), I'll take a stab at this too. Here goes:

Hybridizing and the word hybrid refer to a combination of two different things. Let's stay with hybrid first. I don't think the term is restricted to sexual reproduction, but could refer to any "combination". One could theoretically produce hostas that were a combination of some sort by methods other than sexual. For example, you could describe a ploidy chimera as a hybrid of two different ploidy tissues. If someone caused that to happen by trying to convert it, I guess you can say they created a hybrid.

Traditionally hybridizing referred to making sexual crosses between two plants that are different in some way. Modern science has added some new ways to make plants that are hybrids, and I don't know if it is correct to call that hybridizing. It isn't really wrong to do so as long as the word doesn't apply to sexual propagation.

The use of these types of techniques aside, "hybridizing" normally refers to intentionally causing the crossing of two different plants, however close or similar they may be, just so they are not the same plant or a clone of the same plant. So if you took two plants and mated them you are a hybridizer. If you didn't you are not. Herb Benedict on more than one occasion took the scapes off all but the two plants he wanted to cross and let the bees mate them. Since he set it up so it would happen, I would say that was hybridizing. He seemed to get crosses by doing that so he successfully hybridized.

If someone simply gathers seed and grows it then, they did not hybridize. Although they may well get some hybrids, they did not cause them. It is the causing that the word hybridizing refers to. Developing or originating new plants would be the catch-all term, and hybridizing would be one of the ways you can do that. Anybody who ever made or discovered a new plant would be an originator, but only those whose caused the combination of two different plants would be a hybridizer.

Amateur vs. professional normally would refer to whether you were paid to do it. A few people have been paid to hybridize hostas but only a few. They also were paid to work with other plants. I have no idea how much they were paid, but I doubt it was very much. I think it is pretty much a "don't give up your day job" thing. I don't know of many cases where people actually tried to hide their crosses when they registered them. Again, it may have happened, but mostly people put unknown when they don't actually know. More than one person was known to make things up when they didn't know, but that isn't the same thing.

Sport development can be a lot more work than hybridizing. Hybridizing can be just making one cross one time and sowing the seed in the ground, while sport development can be years of separating and working with buds and rhizome pieces. Of course you sometimes just find a complete sport too and don't really do any work with it, and hybridizing is usually a lot more work.

Lastly, Chris, don't forget you have to make a "bzzzzzz" sound when you are applying the pollen or the cross won't actually be made. It isn't just the suit. If you decide to take up hybridizing, ask Brian to videotape it and post a link here so we can help you perfect your technique. Be sure to buy a costume that is approved by the Hybridizers Union. This one is highly recommended as it gives near perfect success with your crosses ---

http://partywiththis.com/images/P/334.jpg

........Bill Meyer

[jgh]

Very well said, Bill!

Just to take the opposing lawyers position for a moment, though... about "causing" the hybridization to happen.

Hostas are not native in our environment. I could wait a lifetime for a hosta to appear by natural causes in the little enviroment I have turned into a garden. When I select a streaked breader parent hosta (one that is not normally self-pollinating), purchase it, and place it in my enviroment... and surround it with some other hosta plants to provide for open pollination... I have in fact caused hybridization to occur.

True, I am only choosing one parent and leaving my subsequent selection process to choose among the seedlings for chosen characteristics... but that new hybrid I grow from the seeds only occured because I selected a pod parent, planted and nurtured it, and planted pollen parents around it.

I think the necessity of selecting both hybrid parents is still a gray area... so I remain agnostic...

[kHT]

A hybridizer takes pollen from the 'Father Plant' and crossed the 'Mother Plant' prior to the bud opening, then seals it up so that no critter can pollinate the
said bud. To wait until it's open means you are to late, also mind you if there is a crack in the bud than you can assume you are to late. If you allow the bees or whatever
to pollinate then one should label them open pollinated.

A person that grows out the seeds is the adopted/host care giver. They are responsible to keep the hybridizer posted on all said seedlings and it's up to the hybridizer
to say cull or keep and the naming rights goes to the hybridizer. If you have a sport it's should be noted on what plant it came from and additional information that goes
with registering said new plant.

Some of us that take our Brugmansia seriously also note the color wheel chart numbers which is also great to have.

http://s13.photobucket.com/albums/a258/ ... C00784.jpg

[John]

I'm going to have to take serious exception to part of KHT post. Some brug growers and hybridizers, as opposed to the established standard in the rest of the plant world, refuse to acknowledge that ALL rights to cull, keep, or name (and register and introduce) a new seedling devolve to the "originator", that is, the person in whose garden a new cultivar blooms for the first time.

IF the 'hybridizer' wishes to retain any control, he must grow out and bloom the seed himself.

The exception would be where there was a prior arrangement and understanding between the hybridizer and the seed grower. But this is NOT the case by default.

The 'rules' of plant registration authorities will bear this out, with the singular exception of Brugmansia. I've never been given an adequate explanation as to why Brugmansia should be different, and it is my feeling that in time that must be brought into conformity with other plant registration.

Nothing personal, here, Karma, and I know you are not alone in this opinion--- the key here is whether or not there is a prior understanding between you and those to whom you have given seed. Failing that, the rights remain with the person who first flowers the resultant seedling.

[dmi188]

A person that grows out the seeds is the adopted/host care giver. They are responsible to keep the hybridizer posted on all said seedlings and it's up to the hybridizer
to say cull or keep and the naming rights goes to the hybridizer. If you have a sport it's should be noted on what plant it came from and additional information that goes
with registering said new plant.

So if I buy seed from someone on ebay, or someone donates them here, and I buy them to support this forum, they, without question, retain naming rights? And if in 10 yrs. I realize I have an exceptional plant, and don't know the seed source? I can't name the plant?