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Seedling Names


I bet your asking "So what is this thing about seedling names? Is it important?". Seedling names are nothing more than to help you keep track of each individual seedling. This is done so you know what seedling is which. This is very important if you plan to get serious about hybridizing. But even if you don't plan on being serious about it, it's still very good practice to do this and I would recommend doing it. It helps you greatly in determining what plant is what.

Everyone uses a different system to keep track of their seedlings. Some just number them, others use letters and some use both. I use both. I use the initials of the parent plants plus a number to "name" my seedlings. For example if I cross a plant called "Wine Delight" and "Carey Quinn" I would use the initials "WDCQ" for any seedlings that this cross produced. (WD for Wine Delight and CQ for Carey Quinn) I would also number the seedlings. So the first seedling in this group would have the seedling name "WDCQ-01" and so on with each plant. By looking at this name, I can quickly tell what cross this is from and what seedling it is.

If your unsure what parent plant initials you should list first, here's your answer! The pod parent (mother plant) would be listed first. And the pollen parent (father plant) is listed last. The pod parent is the plant that will grow the actual seed pod. The pollen parent is used pollinate the pod parent. So using the example plants from above, the pod parent would be "Wine Delight" (WD) and the pollen parent "Carey Quinn" (CQ). You can read more about this in the hybridizing section.