The cross I made in 2024 that I'm still thinking about
I made this cross at a time when I only had a handful of plants mature enough to produce pollen and being able to produce berries. Midnight Velvet x Red Studd was receptive, Carla X producing pollen, so decided to try it out. There wasn’t a specific goal behind it, it was simply good timing.
It turned into one of my favorite batches so far.
Despite my suspicions, the results were unexpected in the best possible way. Turns out that when these 2 plants were combined, some of the best features came through in the offspring. Many developed strong purples and pink-reds and interesting venation patterns that neither parent clearly displays. Some even showed wide to flat sinus, and the emergence on several was especially intense.
This was also when I started to notice how much influence Carla X can have. It seems to carry traits like spidery, electric venation that only appear in the offspring, despite not showing them itself, possibly recessive traits that aren’t obvious on their own.
From this batch, I kept three plants, all of which are now part of my next generation of breeding. Two of them are named Lava and Midnight Sun, and the third is still looking for a name.
'Lava' has a very flat sinus and an unexceptionally intense purple color that holds for a really long time. The venation is more pink than the leaf blade and has this draping quality that flows downward across the leaf, which is what gave it the name. It just reminded me of lava running down a hillside.
'Midnight Sun' is sort of the opposite. The veins are minimal and clean, and the emergence moves through purple and then into orange, which is a combination I really love. The velvet texture is very pronounced sort of puffy.
The last one is still just 'individual number 2' (I'm not very creative with names, so at first I usually start with numbers before naming anything). It has very intense pink emergent leaves that harden off to a cool green with pronounced yellow venation, and it’s easily one of my favorites despite not having a name yet.
All of them have now been used in the next round of crosses, and a few of those offspring are going into this Saturday's restock. I'm hoping for some amazing emergents with these ones.
I think one of the things this batch taught me early on is that it's just worth trying things and seeing what happens, because you genuinely don't know what's in a plant until you combine it with something. Some of my best results have come from crosses I wasn't really sure about. That's actually part of what's been pushing me to finalize something I've been working on quietly for a while: a plant library where you'll be able to browse the genetics behind my hybridizing, parent plants, the crosses I've made from them, and the resulting offspring across generations. More on that very soon.
Veera
