I like the idea of a tierred method of judging. Those people familiar with a species or type could single out cvs of merit who then would hand off the judging to another group familiar with even more types until an educated consensus is reached.
Yes, exactly; and in theory this could ensure that excellent, if more obscure, new cultivars would not get lost in the shuffle. Expertise level overall could improve because specialization would be encouraged and acknowledged. If you had judges who were accredited to judge certain classes, then they could become highly specialized, and their own collections could be focused. Perhaps they and they alone might be the ones to vote for the various sub-Dykes medals. Perhaps they could have their own gardenworthiness awards, based on what they have discovered talking among themselves.
People could become accredited in more than one class of Iris. More knowledge, more influence. You'd still need folks to judge shows, and the two would not be mutually exclusive.
But who gets to vote for the Dykes?
The Board actually recommends their candidate to the BIS, if I recall correctly, so that in theory they should do the picking from the Medal winners. I personally think that idea would go over like a steel cloud. For some reason the Board often seems to be less than a sum of its parts. Maybe there might be a cadre of Master judges who had achieved certification in several diverse areasot all of them bearded? and they could duke it out? There would be a lot of opinions flying around, but at least they would be informed ones. The priviledge of voting to recommend an iris to the Board for the Dykes might be a goal to work for.
Eh, what do I know. I'm not a judge. But everyone is obviously bored out of their minds, and no one is happy, the beaurocracy is working agin yer rather than fer yer, and the few folks who are interested in spurias can't even cast a vote for the good ones. Makes no sense.
AMW
