Re: Re: SPEC-X

 

As I have explained before I lead the campaign to include species and species-croosses into the awards system twenty years ago. For the life of me I do not know why it was not done sooner but perhaps that speaks to SIGNA not pushing before that. There are so few first generation species crosses that are produced during the first ten years, the award was suspended one year because of lack of competition. One of the goals I had in promoting this award was to see more species and their crosses available to American hybridizers. I do believe that positive effect has occurred. Now as the awards are being reconsidered. I believe it is very likely we will go backwards and loose these awards or make them non viable.

One threat is something that no one has mentioned. If you look at what is being registered and even what is being produced but not registered(another problem), you will see that most innovation is being done in other parts of the world than the USA.  The chance to compete for these awards helps at least in a small way to get these plants into the USA. But the AIS awards system took a big blow recently. The Dykes Medal is awarded by the British Iris Society and voted on by the AIS judges. Recently DECADENCE and SLOVAK PRINCE were dropped from the ballot for the Dykes because the British require that the American Dykes be won by a North American Hybridizer. Many people did not know this, and Decadence and Slovak Prince were assumed by many TB people to be potentail Dykes Medal winners. When many judges finally learned about that rule, the Dykes Medal lost much of it lustre. The Best Iris grown in North American could not always compete. The Wister Medal thus becomes the highest award ,that any TB in the AIS awards system can win, and thus becomes more prestigious than The Dykes, at least for TBs.

What implications does this have for Species and Species-X? Remember i noted that most SPEC-X are being produced by overseas hybridizers. There is now a chauvenistic movement to restrict all American awards to American Hybridizers. This also would kill the SPEC-X category and limit the irises available to Americans. Even those who do not like bearded Iris would loose most of their present sources. Whenever we try to get more and more restrictive we loose in the end.

 
----- Original Message -----
From: "Sean A. Zera" <zera@umich.edu>
To: iris-species@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, November 26, 2010 10:31:58 AM
Subject: Re: [iris-species] Re: SPEC-X

 

As someone already mentioned, the first British Dykes medal in 1927
was awarded to a cal-sib. Yet cal-sibs weren't even *eligible* for an
AIS Dykes until 2003 when the SPEC-X class was created. Seventy-six
years is a heck of a long time for AIS to have waited to even begin
fixing its awards system.

Could someone who's actually seen 'Dolce' explain which species-like
traits it shows that fall outside what's allowed in the TB class? If
it fits the rules of the category, but simply won't win because of
current judging preference, the implication of winning the SPEC-X is
"it's not good enough to be a TB, but it's still better than all those
wacky beardless hybrids."

As to the idea that advanced bearded hybrids are popular with the
general public because they're the most garden-worthy, adaptable
irises - um, they have to be divided regularly, rot if planted or
mulched improperly and suffer from things like iris borer and leaf
spot. My beardless (including ones with existing AIS classes) have
been ensconced for years and are never diseased.

As to AIS classes existing because of popularity nation-wide, I've
never seen anyone growing Louisianas, PCs, or Japanese around here
besides myself. I know one other person growing Spurias, and he's a
botany professor specializing in Iris who has a single clump of
graminea. Yet practically every house around here, even those without
a garden proper, has reticulatas. Reticulata and xiphium hybrids are
in every general gardening catalog. Blue flags and pseudacorus are
available in every corner pond supply store, but even our most
wide-ranging native species were excluded from receiving AIS medals
until 2003.

As a disclaimer, I'd like to point out that I like bearded irises. I'd
like to grow more bearded species, they're just hard to obtain. I
probably have more modern hybrid TBs than any other single iris type,
though I'm trying to cut back to only the weird and unusual. I just
think that, given the current situation with AIS, bearded hybridizers
should voluntarily leave the SPEC-X category alone, since it's the
*only* option available to hybridizers of most iris species. Allowing
a plant like 'Dolce' to compete is gaming the system, biased as it is
towards TBs.

Sean Z
Michigan

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