# Question About Rare Flowers



## Chiana (Feb 9, 2018)

I have bred all colours of flowers and can pretty much make what I want, limited only by the percentage rate of certain colors being produced.  Why are some seeds called "RARE" when you get them while other seeds of the exact same colour are not called rare?  Is there eny different effect from planting or cross-pollinating with them?  For example, the other day i got some black tulip seeds from Xpoll and then some black ones that said "Rare."  Is there a difference in those black seeds?


----------



## KaydeeKrunk (Feb 9, 2018)

I was wondering this too, I think maybe it's the method at which you get it, so if it's a cross pollination with a low chance of that seed color it will show rare, when it's a higher chance it doesn't show it? That's just a guess though, I'm not really sure. But I see this constantly with coral pansies cause I get a lot of them while trying to get oranges.


----------



## SierraSigma (Feb 9, 2018)

It's all to do with the dominant and recessive genes. When it says rare, the gene is mutated. For example, a red tulip gene and a white tulip gene will mutate into a pink/white tulip 70% of the time. Say you bred two orange tulips and got a pink, that would mean that one of those oranges had a recessive pink gene. This isnt a mutation: the gene was already there. You just couldnt see it.

Is there a difference? Not really, no. The main thing is you can be certain of the genealogy of a mutated seed.

It all depends how interested you are in the gardening mechanic in general. If youre not that bothered, a rare seed compared to another seed of the same colour means pretty much nothing. If youre quite into it, it'll tell you where it came from and what its gene make up is. Ironically, if you're into it, you probably didnt need it to tell you anyway.

Take the breeding of an orange/white tulip (the kind Lloid gives) and a black/white tulip (which is the make-up of a mutated "rare" black seed). All genes have a 50% chance of inheriting, and a white/white combination has a 70% chance of mutating into a black/white "rare" seed. A tulip will always show up as whatever gene it has which is higher on the dominance scale. In this case, all we need to know is that orange beats black, and black beat white. The resulting seed will have these odds:

Orange/black - an orange tulip with a black recessive gene. 25% chance.
Orange/white - orange tulip with white recessive. 25% chance.
White/black - a black tulip with a white recessive. 25% chance. Will not be tagged as rare as it isnt a mutation, just a dominant black gene.
White/white - a purebred white tulip. 7.5% chance. (30% of 25% - the chance of a white/white combination not mutating)
Black/white - a mutated black tulip. All mutated blacks have this gene combo. 17.5% chance (70% chance of getting correct combination and it mutating). This seed, unlike the other black tulip you could get from this combination, will be marked as rare, despite it being genetically identical to the former now.

So in actuality this combination gives a 42.5% (25+17.5) chance of giving a black tulip. Some will be marked as rare and some wont, but they will all be genetically identical.

Check these pages out for full information on how flower breeding works.
Guide for Tulips
Guide for Pansies

And feel free to ask anything too. Im not infallible but I get it pretty well I think.


----------



## Chiana (Feb 10, 2018)

SierraSigma said:


> It's all to do with the dominant and recessive genes. When it says rare, the gene is mutated. For example, a red tulip gene and a white tulip gene will mutate into a pink/white tulip 70% of the time. Say you bred two orange tulips and got a pink, that would mean that one of those oranges had a recessive pink gene. This isnt a mutation: the gene was already there. You just couldnt see it.
> 
> Is there a difference? Not really, no. The main thing is you can be certain of the genealogy of a mutated seed.
> 
> ...



Thank you.  I understood how dominant and recessive alleles worked, but this gives me a nice handy guide.   That makes sense regarding the rare seeds.  I am totally into breeding all the colours.  I love the garden patch.


----------



## SierraSigma (Feb 11, 2018)

I only looked into it and got into it about a week before the gothic rose event. I wasnt going to bother but now I get it, I really enjoy it. I got 150 pink tulip seeds in two and a half days. Now Im breeding a purple one to parent 150 of those.


----------



## MopyDream44 (Feb 11, 2018)

Sierra, can you give a few examples of the ideal genes to have to get the best results for each color? Reading through the gene theory, I would think that the best genes to have would be the gene of the color you want, followed by the gene that is the lowest on the dominance scale, which would ensure you would almost always get the color you want from crossing breeding.


----------



## SierraSigma (Feb 11, 2018)

Hi Mopy.  You're correct. That is pretty much exactly how to get the colour you want. 

The problem comes where the most readily available flowers (Lloid ones) all have at least one high-dominance gene (red tulips have two and are mostly useless for breeding!). Thus in most cases the most efficient you can possibly be is to crossbreed Lloid-grown flowers (usually orange tulips and red pansies) with a pure-bred version of the flower you are aiming to receive, which thus gives you a 50% chance of getting what you want.

You COULD crossbreed, say, purples tulips with pink ones for an extremely high chance of generating pinks, but then, where did you get all those purples!?

This doesnt always hold true either, but if you want to either here or in PM tell me which flower youre after specifically Ill tell you the best way I can think of to farm it.

If you want pink tulips, cross breed orange tulips bought from Lloid with the one in my garden. That combination gives out exclusively pinks and oranges. Then, grow THOSE oranges and cross breed again with that pink and youll still get the same odds on a pink. Repeat forever.

Im also working on a purebred purple right now so when you see that show up in my garden use Lloid oranges on that for your purples. Purples have a failure rate twice as high as any other flower so be aware youll feel like you get a lot more failed breeds than normal.


----------



## Chiana (Feb 12, 2018)

SierraSigma said:


> Hi Mopy.  You're correct. That is pretty much exactly how to get the colour you want.
> 
> The problem comes where the most readily available flowers (Lloid ones) all have at least one high-dominance gene (red tulips have two and are mostly useless for breeding!). Thus in most cases the most efficient you can possibly be is to crossbreed Lloid-grown flowers (usually orange tulips and red pansies) with a pure-bred version of the flower you are aiming to receive, which thus gives you a 50% chance of getting what you want.
> 
> ...



Then there are the pansies which have an somewhat different pattern, Mopy.  I spent time working with the tulips until I had my favourite methods all sorted out.  then I moved on to the pansies.

Also, it was not until recently that I learned that you get some of the friend powder for every planst cross-bred with one of yours.  So, I hve been taking my flowers to cross pollinate at my friends' places, which will give them powder.  I leave a couple of pure rare flowers in my garden now all the time, too, in case someone wants to cross breed with them.


----------



## SierraSigma (Feb 12, 2018)

If you already have a bunch of purebred flowers could I have your friend code please Chiana?


----------

