Re: Rot and borer resistant iris: a myth

Amy R. said:

 >>  ... if you want people to buy new clothes, new cars, etc. you must
 >> obsolete them either through fashion, new and improved stuff, and /
 >> or the old one dies... Not being paranoid, just saying that breeders in
 >> this world do not have to consider the cloth that their lilies are cut
 >> from ... rather how fancy does it look and how much can I sell it for?

You are right on target about many breeders, which is why the exceptions are
especially worthy of respect.  R.W. Munson is probably the most accomplished,
successful, and well-regarded daylily hybridizer alive, and for that reason one
of the few in a position to ask his fellow hybridizers to consider the cloth
their lilies are cut from, for the sake of the daylily itself and its place in
the garden world as a whole.

In every plant society, the traditional way in which older cultivars are made
obsolete is through fashion: narrow hafts are OUT, ruffling is IN, etc. And
this process, in which enthusiasts happily collude with hybridizers, is
wonderful fun -- up to a point.

That point comes for me when the health of the plant has been sacrificed and
its gene pool riddled with weaknesses.  At that point the *new* introductions
are what dies.  And at this same point non-hybridizing enthusiasts face an
unhappy choice: to continue on, risking far more in time, effort, health, and
money (to the makers of systemic poisons and fungicides as well as to growers
for new irises to replace the lossses), or to return to the now hopelessly
unfashionable but tougher older cultivars.

Surely at this point as well, it becomes harder to attract and keep new
enthusiasts, who may understandably be less willing to join a game whose
requirements are so high?

I'm more than willing to "chew the sausage from the bottom up", and plan to
keep and make available records of what succumbs and survives in my garden
under different conditions.  I'm also going to be in touch with people in my
area who grow large numbers of irises and are willing to share their
experiences.  But I'm a little surprised that pressure for disease and borer
resistant cultivars hasn't been exerted from below already. Or that some
breeders haven't taken note of a parallel phenomenon in the rose world: the
enormous success of David Austin's hybrids involving the old garden roses (and
the revival in OGRs themselves), due to a large extent to their greater disease
resistance and lower requirements for spraying.

   Nell Lancaster, Lexington, VA   75500.2521@compuserve.com    USDA zone 6b
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