Dahlia Breeding for the Farmer-Florist and the home Gardener: A Step by Step Guide to Hybridizing New Dahlia Varieties From Seed Paperback – August 13, 2020

Very detailed book for breeding dahlias. Only book available I think. It explains how to properly isolate your dahlia plants from free pollination and carefully pollinate from the two parent plants so you can create brand new dahlia plants never seen before and collecting it's seeds and plant them the following year. Very interesting and sounds fun. I'm going to try it.

This book goes into detail on how to hybridize your own dahlias! It is packed with great information and doesn't skip over things that a beginner may not know. Good photos and very well put together.

Full of great “how to” information.

Kristine Albrecht has hybridized some of the most beautiful and exotic dahlias I've seen. If you see a Dahlia tuber for sale that starts with "KA's" it's one of Kristine's brilliant and beautiful hybrids. This book spills all of the secrets, tips, and tricks for how you or I can do the same. With a lot of practice, a little bit of luck, and following her advice on hybridization we call all cultivate beautiful dahlias. I love her insights on how to maximize seedling space in the 4 inch pots, while giving the tubers a safe space to grow and develop without getting the roots intertwined.WARNING: this book is addictive. It will leave you wanting to turn your backyard into a makeshift hybridization zone... and your partner wondering what happened to what used to be a wonderfully maintained green patch of grass.Easy to read, understand and follow. Kristine in her book and in her Instagram posts makes it easy for everyone to understand and test the waters out. But seriously, check out her hybridized dahlia's as well, they are amazing!

This is a wonderful book full of pertinent information with everything to do with growing Dahlias from seed. The pages are not glossy but clear print and the pictures are what they are when not glossy. I bought this book for the information in it and it has not disappointed. Highly recommend for someone who wants to delve into growing dahlias by seed.

Pros: this book has a lot of very useful information. It has information about dahlia genetics and breeding techniques that I haven’t been able to find elsewhere. The writing is in large print which is nice.CONS: I feel like the price is pretty high for the quality. The image quality is pretty poor for a book, partially because the paper isn’t glossy or high quality. It also feels like the book is just a printed word document. I expected higher quality for the price. I now understand that the author has some unsavory practices with patenting her dahlias and forcing sellers to pay her for each tuber of hers that they sell. She is making people pay for information that was freely given to her over her career, and the book isn’t even high quality.

Kristine Albrecht is probably the most successful current hybridizer of dahlias in North America. She is a professor at a top university and coordinates much of the research on dahlia virus and genome for the American Dahlia Society. Her social media (especially Instagram) communication is probably number one in North America. One could hardly look for a better source for accurate and useful information on growing, exhibiting, and hybridizing dahlias. Look up KA's Popa John, KA's Khaleese, KA's Cloud, and many other offerings from Santa Cruz Dahlias to see how many outstanding dahlias she has introduced in the past few years.

This book provides clear, concise information on hybridizing dahlias. Everything from basic dahlia knowledge and genetics, to how to get your varieties listed in the American Dahlia Society’s classification handbook can be found in this book. I am absolutely thrilled that I made this purchase. In regard to the less than shiny reviews speaking about this book being more of a magazine, I personally love it and wouldn’t change a thing! The text is large enough to comfortably read even for aging eyes, and the format feels practical with big beautiful photos to gaze upon some of the most beautiful cultivars. This book has been such a pleasure to read and put into practice as we enter into another growing season. Thank you Kristine for sharing your knowledge with the world.