Re: CULT: Round-Up

> How about someone on the list planting some spare coloured rz's in a 
> patch away from everything else, and giving the whole lot a good dose of 
> round up, to see if they all come up with white flowers?

	Ok, some how, some of you missed out on my crying in my beer after the
great Round-Up debacle.  After using Round-up judiciously for many years
several "knowledgable" irisarians in our area managed to convince us
that you could spray Round-up right over the top of your iris with out
any disasterous effects.  So, we took a few rz's, sprayed them 4 or 5
times and tested the theory.  They performed just fine, no problem that
we could tell.  Later that year we sprayed ALL my beds right over the
top with Round-Up.  (Previously we had sprayed AROUND not over).  The
results were an unmitigated disaster!!  We were growing about 900 cv's
and of that over 50 just flat turned up their toes and died.  On top of
that many more became weak and sickly and we suffered further losses
when a stress induced rot set in.  To wrap this long sob story up, it
has been two years (we sprayed in 1996) and I think the last of the
barely hanging on iris have either passed away over the winter or gotten
over it.  
	Furthermore, we had some weird bloom in 97 but it is hard to tell
whether it was the late freeze or the Round-Up that caused it.  We had
short stalks, distorted blooms, and even WHITE flowers on things such as
Loud Mouth, and Play With Fire.  I am happy to say that Loud Mouth and
the others that have bloomed so far this year are all the correct color
and size.  So, whatever the cause the effects are not permanent.
	The bottom line here is I am continuing to use Round-Up but have gone
back to spraying around the clumps and I use a shield between the spray
and the clump to prevent drift, instead of spraying over the top. 
Unless you have a desire to rid yourself of some iris so that you have
room to buy new I would not suggest spraying the clumps themselves.
-- 
Dana Brown, Lubbock, Texas  Zone 7 Usda, Zone 10 Sunset
Where we are 3,241 ft above sea level, with an average rainfall of
17.76".  Our average wind speed is 12.5 mph and we have an average
of 164 days of clear weather, 96 of which dip below freezing.
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