Re: AIS Award System was SPEC-X

 

The AIS award system, as currently set up is a thorn in AIS foot, but nothng is being done about it.  While general public, expercts an award to be a  recomendation for garden worthiness, it doesn't work that was for AIS awards. Often Dykes medal winners only do well in a limited area  and many AM winners do well in only a very limited area.   The fancier, more eye candy types win awards based on  high votes from mild  "paradice garden areas". These same plants  sulk or die  elsewhere. While AIS  board memebers are concerned about dropping memebeship, they ignore the relevence to members and general public of the awards.  As I'm in Canada and a comercial seller, I see this   regularly. A new  customer will order Dykes medal winners and AM winners, expecting good garden performance (in Canada)  and find that they , for the most part, do poorly. They then give up on iris, as  the best as recommended by AIS , don't do well.  When, and if people can learn to  ignore AIS awards and take recomendations from people with same growing conditions,  then they can get more interested.

I have spoken to AIS bd members about this,  but little interest in looking at changes. A number of active people, but not bd member, are also  interested in seeing changes that would make award system more relevant. 

But in mean time, lack or relevancy =  loss of membership in AIS

Chuck Chapman




-----Original Message-----
From: El Hutchison <eleanore@mymts.net>
To: iris-species@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thu, Nov 25, 2010 9:52 am
Subject: RE: [iris-species] Re: SPEC-X

 
Morning all.
 
For the medals, Dykes included, I must add that we judges can't vote for towards any iris we haven't at least seen growing for several years in someone's garden, if we don't grow it ourselves.
 
Because there were no AIS judges in Manitoba, it took me longer to qualify, as I had to travel to Ontario a few times for the book side of the training.  I'm honoured to be an AIS judge since 2008, and take my role seriously. 
 
For our yearly local CWIS (Can-West Iris Society), not only do we bring iris for judging, we also put quite a few on our display table as well.  On the Manitoba prairies, our iris peak is mid June, so in a normal year, we mostly have dwarf and median iris shown, with very few TB's.  Most years, Best Specimen of the Show is a median iris.  This year, I was very pleased to be able to take both species and SPEC-X to the show.  A couple of them won 1st place ribbons.
 
As mentioned previously, my garden is an iris display garden, so over the entire season, many people do stop by 2 or 3 times, to see a better range of what iris grow well here.  I still recall one lady in particular though, her first and last visit here, who kept asking, in a most irritating tone, where's the TB's.  I told her she'd have to come back in a few weeks to see those few.  While they comprise only about 10% of my collection, I do have about 150 TB's.
 
As Tom has mentioned, progress in AIS has been made, but there's still a lot more to be done.  There's lots of interesting things in the works, though, such as the new AIS Iris Encyclopedia.  A lot of work has been done on the Species and SPEC-X sections.  It's made my wishlist grow by leaps and bounds.
 
And while it's easy to complain, it's not so easy to actually take part in making those changes.  Hopefully, I'm doing some good by trying to grow as wide a range of iris as I possibly can in a zone 3 garden while trying to educate the public about them.
 
El, Ste Anne (near Winnipeg), Manitoba, Canada Z3
 
To: i*@yahoogroups.com
From: i*@telp.com
Date: Thu, 25 Nov 2010 02:20:43 +0000
Subject: [iris-species] Re: SPEC-X

 
Hi Sean,

Everything you say is true, but you seem to be implying some malevolent conspiratorial bias in the AIS, which I do not think is fair. ;)

The basic fact at work here is that bearded irises (particularly TBs) are simply much more popular and widely grown, both by iris fanciers and by the general public. They are the most adaptable to conditions in all different parts of the US, and the only type to have really caught on with ordinary gardeners who go the garden center in spring and buy a few flowers to plant by the front door.

Popularity means more are produced and sold. And quantity is necessary if one is to have meaningful competition for awards. We can imagine a class and awards system for every series of beardless iris in the genus, but it makes no sense if cultivars in these series dribble into commerce at the rate of one or two a year (or less).

The AIS has, over the decades, extended the awards system to more types of irises, as the i nterest in these types has become sufficient to make competition meaningful. Although official recognition can spur interest in a class, it's not enough to transform a class from obscurity to popularity; it's just a nudge.

SPEC-X seems to me to be an important vehicle for getting around the "Catch-22" of no awards because of few introductions, and few introductions because of no awards. It's a way for a new type of breeding to get off the ground and attract interest.

Your comments about the Dykes Medal raises an issue I could carry on about at length. Our judging system is fundamentally flawed because, as a bare mathematical fact, it rewards an iris for being familiar to a large number of judges, not for impressing a high percentage of judges who are familiar with it. An iris that is seen by 1000 judges and impresses only 10% of them will always beat an iris that is seen by only 100, no matter how good it is. The Dykes Medal goes to TBs, not because judges are biased against other classes, but because nearly all judges grow and see TBs, and only a fraction grow and see the other types.

All the best,

Tom

--- In i*@yahoogroups.com, "Sean A. Zera" <zera@...> wrote:
>
> I, too, have never paid much attention to AIS because of the apparent
> focus on bearded hybrids, but after a bit of reading up, the whole
> system seems pretty strange. Correct me if I'm wrong, but:
>
> There are 15 classifications that receive medals, plus the Dykes
> medal. Of these, eight are restricted to beardeds and another two
> allow beardeds, so fully 2/3 of the categories can be won by beardeds.
> Three medals are awarded in the TB category, so of the 18 medals
> awarded annually, 3/4 can and do go to beardeds.
>
> The highest award, the Dykes, though open to all classes, is in
> practic e awarded only to beardeds and almost exclusively to Tall
> Beardeds, which is downright insulting to everyone else, unless I'm
> missing something here.
>
> Certain arilbred hybrids could potentially be entered as TB, AB or
> SPEC-X, and stand a chance to win the Dykes, while hybrids in entire
> other subgenera can only be entered in SPEC-X and will never win Dykes.
>
> The SPEC-X classification is the only one open to anyone hybridizing
> Chinensis, Ensatae, Foetidissimae, Laevigatae (except JI),
> Longipetalae, Nepalensis, Prismaticae, Ruthenicae, Syriacae,
> Tenuifoliae, Tripetalae, Unguiculares, Vernae, cresteds, reticulatas,
> xiphiums, junos, Belamcanda, Pardanthopsis, wide crosses and whatever
> else I've missed. Yet 'Dolce', which for all intents and purposes
> appears to be a TB, wins. I understand the overwhelming focus of AIS
> on beardeds as an artifact of the history of iris hybridizing, but it
> would seem that the organization has little interest in changing this.
>
> My take on SPEC-X, as the classes stand now, would be to voluntarily
> restrict it to wide crosses (except between two bearded groups) and
> beardless hybrids that don't fit an existing classification. Wild-type
> bearded hybrids, as unlikely as they appear to be to win existing
> bearded classes, at least qualify for them. Entering beardeds into the
> only category many beardless can enter, being judged by an
> organization that prefers beardeds, unfairly reduces the already
> limited chances of a new and different hybrid winning.
>
> Sean Z
> Michigan
>


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