Re: Rot and borer resistant iris: a myth?

Amy:  Planned obsollescence for iris... food for thought.  
(however you spell it) 
I'm not going to contradict you at all because it seems you have a real good
point.
In my travels (not too far and wide) and when I've talked to hybridizers, they
talk about guesting their iris.  (I guess you can make that noun a verb
if you are a specialist!!)  That means that they give a piece of a seedling
that looks really promising to their irising (another noun become verb)
friends around the country to test the gardenability (what's that form)
And will make a conscienteous effort to keep track of hardiness and such.
Now, that's what all hybridizers should do.  HOWEVER
I doubt there's much money in doing that.  The big money, enough to build
that BIG house and have BIG cars is in BIG fields like I hear about in
Roris, Cooley and Schreiner's.
How many do those folks introduce each year?  How much guesting do they do?
And that's the competition.  I don't think any small-backyard hybridizer 
can make a living up against them.  I don't know how big an operation 
Terry Aitken has, but I'll bet he doesn't haave a BIG house unless he keeps
his day job.  
	Let's ask Scott Aitken:
	Will you tell us about your dad's operation?  What kinds of consideration does he give to gardenability?  What's his program of testing before
introducing?  Aitkens things, both bearded and beardless are just supurb.
they increase rapidly, are hardy and just fantastic to look at.
	
This is an interesting topic!
Carolyn Schaffner
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