Registering Irises
- To: i*@Rt66.com
- Subject: Registering Irises
- From: t*@Lanl.GOV (Tom Tadfor Little)
- Date: Tue, 30 Apr 1996 15:59:18 -0600
Ellen asks
: Why wouldn't someone register an iris that he/she would be putting
: into commerce? Is it not "cost-effective" or does one have to wait
: and see if the cultivar is fertile, consistent or what?
I don't think introducing an iris without registering it is a decision
that any knowledgeable breeder would consciously make. The irises that
have been introduced but not registered fall into a few categories:
1) Very old varieties, introduced by reputable nurseries before the AIS
registration system was in place--and which somehow managed to escape
Mrs. Peckham's remarkable research effort in compiling the first checklist.
Some individuals and societies are undertaking the noble task of properly
registering some of these important older varieties that are still in
commerce.
2) Varieties introduced by nurseries or breeders who have never heard of
the American Iris Society. If the breeder was this much in the dark about
irises, chances are the things they create and put on the market are not
desirable improvements over existing cultivars. I would be suspicious of
an iris in this category. It might very well just be some old thing with
a wrong name slapped on it to improve sales.
3) Hybridizer's seedlings, distributed to friends but never intended for
commercial resale. There aren't many in this category, but there are a
few. I think if an unregistered seedling gets around enough to show up
in catalogs, the breeder (or someone else) ought to go ahead and register it.
The registration fee is small; a fraction of the sale price of *one*
rhizome of a new variety, so I don't think economics is a factor.
There is no good reason at all to introduce an unregistered iris. There
may be a reason, from time to time, to *not* introduce an iris that has
been registered: for example, if the stock dies out, if the breeder has
second thoughts about its merits, etc.
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Tom Tadfor Little tlittle@lanl.gov -or- telp@Rt66.com
technical writer/editor Los Alamos National Laboratory
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Telperion Productions http://www.rt66.com/~telp/
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