Hybridizing Daffodils

Why would anyone want to hybridize daffodils? After all, it takes upwards of five years from seed to blooming size bulb. So aside from observing the life cycle of a plant, why bother? Well, you just might come up with a world-beater! At the very least, you’ll have bulbs that you know will do well in your area. White daffodils are notoriously susceptible to basal rot, especially in warmer climates. So if you live in a warm area, and breed a nice white daffodil that doesn’t rot, you’ve got a good thing. You might even interest a bulb grower in listing it in his catalog. But even if you don’t, you’ve got a really good white daffodil.

Amateur hybridizers DO get their bulbs into commerce. Some even start their own business to sell bulbs. Many of the best English/Irish breeders have done just that. The dean of the American amateur hybridizers is Bill Pannill of Virginia. His offerings are so good that several bulb suppliers list them. Some are even in the Dutch trade. Look for his ‘Intrigue’, a lovely pale yellow and white jonquil hybrid. It’s so good in fact that it received The American Daffodil Society’s Wister Award for outstanding garden plants in 1998. Bill’s main interest is exhibiting, and serious exhibitors know they need his bulbs to compete. The American Daffodil Society even has an award named for him which goes annually to an outstanding exhibition daffodil. His ‘Homestead’ won the award in 1998 and ‘River Queen’ is the award-winner for 2003. Both are all white daffodils. His 'Jingle Bells' (pictured) is one of the last to bloom in the season.

Bob Spotts lives in northern California, a difficult area for daffodils. Bob specializes in intermediate-sized flowers. At one time he thought he’d try growing triandrus hybrids, since there aren’t very many. He soon discovered why there aren’t many—most triandrus hybrids are sterile, so essentially you have to go back to using species with other daffodils. I’ve tried it using pink daffodils with N. triandrus, hoping for a pink triandrus hybrid. So far, no pinks! Bob has also used the autumn-flowering N. viridiflorus pollen on spring-blooming daffodils. He has some with distinctly greenish petals. His best-known flower is ‘Kokopelli’, which confounds exhibitors, as it sometimes grows to standard size, and other times is miniature size. The seed was from an open-pollinated bloom of ‘Sundial’, which isn’t supposed to be fertile. Bob planted the seed and got something good. It was available commercially, but the grower retired.

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