At times it takes close observation to distinguish what type of rebloomer you have. A plant that reblooms later in season may be a summer rebloomer genetically, but not have had size earlier in season to trigger bloom. So you would need to have noted that it was at size (leaf maturity) to have summer rebloom, and have it sit there and not rebloom when opportunity presents. Opporunity based on weather factors, but you can use plant markers such as Immortality and Queen dorothy as markers.
Also you can have Fall cyclic rebloomers put up a summer bloom, but on a fan that should have bloomed in spring, but was just missing all factors needed. You can tell this by checking rhizome to see if it is a mother fan blooming or an increase. If on a mother fan, then consider this to not be a summer rebloomer, until you get a summer bloom on an increase.
There is absolutly no doubt in my mind that Summer Rebloomers and Fall cyclic rebloomers are different genetically. I had made numerous crosses of Forever Blue with summer rebloomers, nary a rebloom seedling out of hundreds of seedlings. Many rebloomers out of FB X fall cyclic rebloomers. Far far past any level of significance you could apply to this.
Many instances of Fall cyclic rebloomers from cross of Fall cyclic rebloomers X oncers. George Sutton had written and article on this a couple of years back.
Chuck Chapman
-----Original Message-----
From: Linda Mann <lmann@lock-net.com>
To: iris@hort.net; iris-photos@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sat, Nov 7, 2009 1:28 pm
Subject: [iris-photos] Re: REB: fall cyclic vs other (was seedling help on photos group)
[so folks trying to find info in the archives are more likely to find
the discussion, I've moved my comments there as well as photos]
Too soon in attempted rebloom crosses to say for sure, but so far,
rebloom seems to be acting like a full recessive trait (i.e., 1/36 fall
cycle from two half "summer" rebloom parents). Climate interaction and
multiple genetic factors makes it hard to interpret data, but easy
enough to figure out what I want to change.
I'm still not totally convinced that fall cycle and "summer" (i.e.
jul/aug in my climate) bloom are separate genes. With only maiden
bloom, it's too soon to tell how many/if any of the late fall bloom this
year is really rebloom, much less whether it's cycle or summer.
However, if your theory holds for my climate, Chuck, based on leaf
count, it looks like they will all be late cycle.
If they are separate genes, most/all of the "summer" bloomers here also
have cycle rebloom genes.
But am hoping that whatever other factors are operating in plants that
<can> bloom in July and Aug in California have a chance of combining
with plants carrying Jul/Aug genes here to produce plants that will
thrive in my growing conditions and at least bloom by Sept. I'm hoping
to combine traits of my plants that thrive in summer high humidity and
erratic rainfall with those of cultivars that bloom in CA summer heat.
May not be possible, but I figure it's worth a try.
So far, the only west coast summer bloomers that have rebloomed here are
FEED BACK and GOLDEN IMMORTAL. At least those are the only two I can
think of. MARTY RICHARDS is alive, but doesn't rebloom. MARIPOSA
AUTUMN is a strong growing, reliable, fairly early cycle rebloomer here.
Chuck replied:
<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 said:
<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.>
