Bill, what in the world makes you consider yourself an outsider? You
are subscribed to this group, or you couldn't post, so that
automatically makes you an insider. ;-)
I agree about the fun of this. And the most fun for me is being able to
learn from others their experiences and guesses and other knowledge,
applying it to my own experience, situation, temperament, and coming up
with what works for me, while continuing to experiment!
Remind me never to offer any boiled okra to you folks squeamish about
handling decomposing iris pods. At least okra smells better ;-)
<The great news is
that all this is FUN, or we wouldn't be doing it.>
I agree completely re: germination selection. I am only into F2 (both
parents = my seedlings) so far, and only a few of those, so probably too
soon to see much germination selection yet. Unless everything I'm doing
is eliminating dominants in the F1. Hmm... if immediate germination of
green seeds at warm temperatures etc re: easy germination are dominant
traits, I am definitely getting rid of those.
But I can't usually keep their parents alive here in my erratic climate,
so that's ok ;-)
<In fact, I believe that we can
select for breeding lines that germinate under the system we use, just as we
select for any other trait. >
