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'Aïda' rose Reviews & Comments
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The Dr. Andrea Mansuino reference can't be right. Having met him a couple of times a would guess he wasn't even born when 'Aida' was introduced. I hope Modern Roses doesn't make as many mistakes with other rose families as it does with Italian ones like Mansuino and Cazzaniga.
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If we lived in a perfect world, there would not be the kind of errors your mention finding. You have to remember that communication back in 1956 was not as good as it is today. That is why the participation of HMF members is so valuable in correcting errors in our own database and errors in previously published materials.
The U.S. patent lists Ada Mansuino as the inventor of this rose.
Smiles,
Lyn
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Still strange given what Quinto Mansuino wrote for the ARS magazine - but at least it's the right generation. Don't take my correction as a criticism of Modern Roses; I agree entirely with you: it's up to those who spot the errors to correct them, if only to protect others who might take what is in print as gospel.
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#3 of 4 posted
21 OCT 12 by
 Cà Berta
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There is a french patent that may refer to this rose:
Patent Publication February 03, 1961:
Mansuino Ada: Nouvelle variété de rosier à fleur rouge rose. February 1961: FR1246157.
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This and your other reply relating to 'Red Flare' are very interesting. What they raise, in the case of the Mansuinos, is the nature of the working relationship between Ada and Quinto. A similar problem exists in trying to separate out the work of the various Cazzanigas.
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Looking here, Aida has no registered decendents. This seems a bit surprising given its parents and "bloodlines." I guess the plant is either largely sterile, gives very week seedlings or proved to be a total dud as a parent. Anyone else either know or care to speculate?
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I would guess nobody has bothered to try using 'Aida' for hybridizing. These breeding lines have been used ad infinitum.
There should be no barriers to fertility. Check either parent and you'll find legions of descendants.
There's really no reason to go back to a rose like this unless you have a particular reason for using it. There are far superior parents readily available.
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I wasn't suggesting that it be used today -- I agree that this line of breeding has been explored exhaustively already. It just surprises me that Aida wasn't used 25 years ago. It seems like just the kind of breeding that was being done. I guess the breeders couldn't use every Crimson Glory progeny!
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It may have been used and nothing came of it. I toss unproductive unrecorded crosses all the time. Looking at recorded descendants only gives us a tiny glimpse of the crosses attempted.
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True enough! My breeding experience has been limited to plants where genetic compatiblilty has been the biggest obstacle. If you made a cross and got seed, you sowed some and waited for the progeny to flower, if it ever got that far. Not that you didn't bitterly regret making some crosses (!!!), but you hit some amazing home runs because you could get viable seed and vigorous plants. It still brings me up short to see some of my creations in commerce around the world, and all because I hit upon two plants that would produce viable progeny (and make some pretty cool plants, too).
Roses seem to be a combination of both. Making seed and viable seedlings is easy-peasy. Creating something the market wants that has REAL merit is something else. And then you have incompatibility problems (ploidy, chromosone count, etc) which make the most tantalizing crosses seemingly out of reach. Fun stuff. Too bad I wasted too much time on plants other than roses!
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Jeff, sounds like you have good grasp of the situation. Breeding quality roses is a numbers game once one decides what direction they want to go in. There are several areas of specialization, as you know.
Other than that roses are about money and MARKETING. It comes down to clout which long terms means profitability.
The market is changing very rapidly. We are in a huge transition period. Only companies who keep overhead very low are going to survive.
The best roses sometimes slip into anonymity because they have no one with means to rally behind them. I can think of many current examples.
In the end rose cultivars are largely interchangeable between companies. All that is needed is something to fit a particular marketing niche. The rest is just management, and production costs.
It is in the best interest of companies to keep fresh product in the pipeline for marketing reasons, if it benefits the customer even better.
Horticulture is just another business, but then you know all about that.
Congrats on your breeding work. Orchids?
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Mostly orchids. They're where any commercial success I had came from. I also diddled some other plants (Delphinium, Coleus, Dahlia and a few others), but getting and keeping all the breeding stock was difficult, since it wasn't really a focus.
It's pretty obvious that the effectiveness of marketing a new variety is more important than the actual merits of the plant -- most of the time. Sometimes a plant's merits has such strong appeal to nurserymen/women (ease of propagation, vigor, fast production cycle, pot appeal, etc) that it becomes widely distributed without any marketing push. I suppose Iceberg might be a rose example of that, though a poor one since the plant has been around for 50 years. The annual parade of ARS winners -- most loudly trumpeted by J&P -- has not served consumer particularly well, but sold a lot of rose plants. The problem comes over time. Consumers become inured to the hype and past poor experiences with the ARS winners make consumers leery of trying another.
Any nursery business these days has got to operate with unbelievable efficiency, be located close to it's market and work on CHEAP land. Price pressure has been building for many years and margins have been squeezed to almost nothing. I go into a Home Depot and see what they're selling things for and I just can't believe what I'm seeing -- prices that haven't changed in 25 years. How is any grower supposed to survive? Heck, I think the transportation costs alone must account for 50% of the retail price. And the sales are guaranteed and the care of the stock in the store pushed back to the supplier! Now add product development costs on top of that and you've got in impossible situation.
But I go on too long.
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