Seeds versus Tubers

Now that we are all just waiting in great anticipation for our new dahlia babies to sprout and grow some roots so we can plant them into the garden, there is actually nothing else I am doing on the farm regarding my dahlias at the moment.  As soon as my new dahlia varieties are strong enough I will transplant them into my dahlia beds which are ready to be planted.

So I thought it would be a good time to talk about dahlia seeds versus dahlia tubers.  I see a lot of people on Facebook selling dahlia seeds and dahlia tubers.  To grow a dahlia you can take a seed, plant it in your garden and it will grow. After 3 months it will produce a flower and bloom. So if you are after dahlia flowers this is a great option.

 

The problem however is that if you take a seed from for example, Café au Lait, and plant it, it will not look like Café au Lait.  It will also not look like the father, which you probably do not know the name of because the bees decided who the father is when they flew around in your neighborhood collecting pollen and cross pollinating your prized Café au Lait with someone. Some of the children of Café au Lait might be good looking, but most of them will be ugly (which is totally in the eye of the beholder) and maybe one in a thousand will be beautiful.  This is what happens when you sow the seed of a stunning Café au Lait dahlia.  Now imagine what will happen if you sow the seeds of a ugly, open faced, deformed, no name brand dahlia.  Her children will have a very, very small chance of being beautiful.

This is also the method hybridizers use to create new dahlia varieties for us to enjoy. If you would like to learn more about dahlia breeding, go and follow Kristine Albrecht, she is the breeder of the famous KA dahlia range.

The world famous KA dahlias bred by Kristine Albrecht from Santa Cruz Dahlias  (Photo Credit Brion Sprinsock)

They start off with a stunning bloom on a mother plant, then they cross pollinate by hand with a bloom from a father plant who is also stunning.  While doing this they cover both blooms with organza bags to keep them from being contaminated by the bees.  Then they leave the mother flower on the plant to ripen and die.  They pick  her and save her seeds.  Early in the next season they start by sowing the seeds from the previous season.  Then they grow the plants and when the plants start to flower they begin to cull the plants with ugly, deformed and bad quality blooms until in the end they keep about ten from a thousand seedlings.  As they all say it is a numbers game.  The more you sow the better your chances to find something special.  But this is not it, when winter comes they save the tuber (yes, a seedling will develop a tuber) and next season they grow it again.  They check if the flowers are stable and are still the same quality and form as the previous year, otherwise they cull the plant. That winter they save the tubers, divide them and when spring comes they do it all over again, but this time they take the flower to dahlia shows, make it jump through all the hoops and if the flower is still stunning and live up to high standards they will decide to give it a name and then release the tubers from this dahlia into the world for us to enjoy.

A small piece of DNA I was gifted which I am cloning to share with you

This is why we buy tubers.  If you want to have a piece of the beauty that somebody worked so hard to develop, you must clone the plant.  To multiply the plant and get a copy or clone you can take a cutting of the tubers (when they sprout) or of the plants while they are growing, or you can grow and increase the tubers and replicate the exact DNA of the beautiful new dahlia variety.  So when you buy a tuber you buy a clone of the dahlia somebody hybridized and tested and decided to share with the world.

There are always exceptions to the rule.  Not all seeds for sale are bad quality, there are hybridizers like Floret who has been breeding dahlias for a long time who sells her dahlia seeds online in America.

Dahlia Floret bred by Erin Benzakein, Floret Flower Farm  (Photo Credit Erin Benzakein)

The seed you buy from her was collected from a variety which she isolated and then used flies ( yes you heard me right, flies) to cross pollinate and then she sells the seeds to the public.  When planting this seed you have a better chance at finding a gem because the seeds come from a controlled environment.  To explain a controlled environment better. Let's say you live on a farm in the middle of nowhere and there are no other dahlias in a 10km radius.  In your garden you only grow waterlily dahlias, the bees and other pollinators goes to town on your dahlia blooms and then you harvest the seeds from your dahlias.  When you plant the seeds from your dahlias you will have a higher percentage chance of getting waterlily babies than me who grows all shapes and sizes.

So this season I am dabbling in the unknown and will be growing a few of Florets dahlia seeds.

The Floret Dahlia seeds that I am growing 

I will keep you in the loop on my progress so follow me on Instagram and I must say, it is pretty exciting to think that in my field this year may be a beautiful new dahlia variety which nobody has ever seen.

She who loves dahlias

Mareli