Blue Rose genetics theory: how to make blues more easily, or at all

[jolokia]

I've been breeding hybrids since I got the game in September, with the eventual goal of getting blue roses to spawn natively in my town. Recently I came across a Gamefaqs thread where the author went into detail about the genetics of ACNL flowers. I'm not sure if it was just his personal theory or whether he genuinely knew something about it, but it's still an interesting idea.

The standard wisdom about getting blue roses involves breeding from two red roses that were themselves spawned from orange and purple roses.

The Gamefaqs guy believed that there was another step: the orange and purple roses must be homozygous orange and homozygous purple. In plain language, the orange parent must have two orange parents, the purple parent must have two purple parents. The mistake people tended to make was in using the wrong kind of orange and purple roses to spawn their hybrid reds.


You purchase a yellow Y(xx) and a red rose R(xx) from Leif. These flowers don't have parents. You pair these together to make an orange rose with a yellow and red parent O(YR).
You use two store-bought white roses to make a purple P(WW).

If you then use the O(YR) and P(WW) roses to make a hybrid red, Gamefaqs guy believed it will NOT be the kind of red that can spawn a blue.

This is the missing step:
Get two orange roses and breed them together, to get an offspring O(OO).
Repeat with the purples for P(PP).

Breed O(OO) and P(PP) together for a hybrid red R(OP). Use these reds to spawn your blue.


If this theory is true, it might explain why some people seem to have terrible trouble spawning blues, and other people get them fairly fast. It may ALSO explain why some people have claimed that they got blues from roses that aren't HRRs - maybe all you REALLY need is for the parents to have the (OO) and (PP) genetic heritage.


I don't TT, so I haven't been able to test it cohesively, but I can say this: I'd been trying for a blue ever since I started playing in September, and it was only after I adopted the Gamefaqs hybrid method that I got one. My original HRRs were probably from O(YR) and P(WW) parents as I'm fairly sure I used the first purple rose I got. Once I swapped my HRRs out for a pair of HRRs specifically spawned from homozygous orange and purple parents, using Beautiful Town and fertilizer, I had my first blue rose within seven days.

Any bored time travelers want to test this out? It needs more science.

 

[Elphy]

It makes sense to me, I couldn't breed any blue roses. I was missing that third step. Great find

 

[Libra]

Makes sense, I gave up on breeding blue roses and just bought some, but for me that would indeed have been the missing step as well.

 

[ThomasNLD]

I will try it this way, but it will be a looong time before I could post a conclusion. I don`t time travel.

 

[Merelfantasy]

I'll try too, it could take a while.

 

[jolokia]

More testing in progress :

I have set up two pairs of HRRs, one with R(OP) heritage and one without. If the R(OP) pair continues to spawn blues, it will point towards the theory being correct. If the mongrel ones ever spawn a blue, it'll disprove the theory, but I'm not convinced they will because they didn't in three months of trying.

Anyone wants to test this properly, I suggest making two pairs of HRRs, one with R(OP) heritage and one without (i.e. use O(YR) and P(WW) parents). You should be able to get two flowers to spawn per day, one from each pair, as long as your villagers don't muck about watering other random flowers in town.

 

[Jellieyz]

I have both HRRs from Orange and Purple roses that both have homozygous parents (OO) and (PP) respectively. And still no blue.

If it helps it produces whites, blacks and reds. This may be an indication as to why its not producing blues.

 

[stitchmaker]

That's interesting. I did get Blue roses and used the Forbidden blue rose youtube method. It took awhile for the first blue rose to appear. I think I did have some orange or purple roses spawn in the orange and purple set up.
I just kept moving them like the video said to do.

I have another town where I did the same set up and nothing happened. Took blue roses from my first town. There is only more when I place fertilizer or a few times where it's rained alot. That town hasn't earned the golden shovel or just started getting fertilizer. Before I was getting it from my 3rd town.

 

[Alearia]

This is really interesting! I've been trying to spawn blue roses, so thanks so much for sharing this info.

 

[jolokia]

Jellieyz - are you absolutely 100% certain that the purple rose you've been using is P(PP)? If it happened to be spawned from two whites P(WW) or a purple and a white P(PW), that could explain where the whites are coming from. Getting black from a red/red pairing is normal. Try rebreeding your purple rose, make some more HRRs, and see if the whites stop appearing.

 

[J087]

I'm starting to wonder if Nintendo actually had this entire breeding theory in mind when they were writing the codes for hybrids. Or if it's just plain luck, like how lucky some people are by having snow the entire month while others haven't seen a single drop of rain since they started playing.

If you start wondering about flower genetics in a game designed for 3 year olds you could also question the location of breeding. Some parts of your town might have more fertile grounds than others, hence the dead spots. Perhaps plants might breed better on never walked-on grass opposed to dirt patches?

 

[jolokia]

(I take issue with your "designed for 3 year olds" comment, I don't know many 3 year olds with the reading capacity to play AC lol)

Flower breeding in AC is definitely not random. I have seen my orange pansies throwing yellow and red offspring, but never white or blue. I've also seen a pair of white roses in my game throw a pink offspring, although they should only make white and purple - in that case one of the white roses had a pink parent. This shows that flowers do preserve and pass on genetic information from at least the previous generation.

Editing re dead spots: this might be interesting to look into if anyone wants to try, but my gut feeling is it's not relevant. I had my blue rose spawn setup on the beach so obviously that's where they showed up, but other hybrids were spawning quite happily on various areas of the town grass in the meantime. My grass is mostly in pretty good condition.