The lateness of Cyclic rebloom would be related to a number of factors. The leaf count at maturity is one. The plant vigour is another. That is the faster it grows, the soomer plant will reach its "Plant Maturity".
Fall Cyclic maturity seems to act like a dominant factor, so no need to cross it with an other Fall cyclic rebloomer. Just a plant with fast growth and low "plant Maturity" leaf count.
I suspect Fall Cyclic rebloomers to be a hybrid anomoly. that is a mix of aphylla photoperiod dormancy with the regular bearded iris dormancy. Thus a fall cyclic rebloomer will likely produce as many seedlings with fall cyclic rebloom when crossed with a oncer as with another fall cyclic rebloomer, as long as plant vigour and mant maturity at bloom time factors are the same. Actually with it being a hybrid anomoly, a cross with a oncer could possibly produce more seedlings then are rebloomers produced with a cross to another fall cyclic rebloomer.
A cross of Forever Blue, ( a whenever rebloomer, not a fall cyclic rebloomer, with very fast plant increase) when crossed with Victoria Falls, ( a cyclic rebloomer that does not rebloom in our climate) produced seedlings where almost every seedling showed fall cyclic rebloom. My interpretation is that Victoria Falls has a high maturity leaf count and the cross with FB reduced lematurity leaf count and increases vigour, with cyclic rebloom genes commingfrom VF.
Chuck Chapman
-----Original Message-----
From: Linda Mann <lmann@lock-net.com>
To: iris-photos@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Fri, Nov 6, 2009 4:40 am
Subject: [iris-photos] Re: HYB: REB: seedling help
To get away from all this late cycle rebloom here, for next year's
rebloom crosses, I hope to mix the late cycle genes from a few things
exclusively with west coast "summer" bloomers to see if that will get
the right mixture of rebloom genes to at least get earlier fall bloom.
So something wtih modern form and bloom 5 months of the year in CA
sounds great to me!
While I don't like the white zone either, the rest of the "package" is
lovely. Esp like the way the combination of "blue" rim on yellow ground
looks.
Unless the 5 months are Oct thru Feb! ;-) Any bloom in July/Aug?
What's the pedigree - anything that might live in the vale?
Linda Mann
east TN
