Wouldn’t you think with a couple of hundred awards, thousands of people growing delenatii as an alba, regular or dark rose pink type that this would have happened or have been noticed before now?
Plus so many with any anthocyanin in the pouch, wouldn’t the effects of heat stress been notice before?
Look how dark the ‘Dunkel’ clones are.
I was just over at the owner's house to help pollinate the plant by selfing. He said that the pouch opened up very light blush pink and then after a few days turned white. Very interesting to know.
I think the breeding of the delenatii from the beginning was to get a darker pink from the initially offered light pink flowers (since only one plant in France was available and those were selfed and sibbed). Because of the strive to get darker pink pouches, any light pink pouches were cast aside, unless it was an alba (which was discovered later). These cast-offs were the ones that were possibly seen by Olaf and Xavier over 20-30 years ago, but were not bred as they were not desirable. As a result, they might have disappeared from the breeding lines.
As Ernesto pointed out, it could have been a mutation that occurred and produced this coloration. Let's see if the selfing produces all same albescents or a mixture of colors (hopefully pod takes).
I also saved the pollen to breed onto an alba delenatii (in the next season, as delenatii season for this year is finished) to secure the trait.