2014 harvest

 

I am nearly done harvesting Iris pods from my garden... I have 1 left on Murrayana, 1 left on virginica, 2 left on I. tetra-versata, and a handful on Louisianas and I. tridentata. But for the most part the results are in, and they're not good.

About 80% of the pods that I harvested were balloons. I've never had a year like it! I had at least 25 pods on I. flavescens, and only got 3 seeds. I had about a dozen pods on Satan's Mistress; ALL were balloons.

Some of it can be explained by the fact I used very old pollen on some crosses. Some of it can be explained by the fact I made a lot of very wide Spec-X crosses. But even many normal crosses such as TB x TB produced big balloons. And many bee pods were balloons too.

Damage by bud moth borers was negligible. In some years those critters inflict major heartache.

My contributions to the SIGNA Seed Ex will be light, this year. Unfortunately.

Dennis in Cincinnati


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