Re: nursery/Free plants

From: Mike Lowe <mlowe@worldiris.com>

Walter writes...

>Hmm...nobody responded to my post regarding irises
>registered and introduced specifically for the purpose of giving them away
>as bonuses.  Two of the examples of such plants were from the past, but
>one was rather recent.  Does this mean that those really wanting bonuses
>are pleased with plants that are introduced for that purpose and are
>obviously inferior?

This ran in the Fall 1989 'Reblooming Iris Recorder' but a quick check on
the AIS award won by the same hybridizers introductions: 1990-1994, shows
remarkably similar statistics. As it is still a valid analysis I offer it
as the AIS Judges' answer to Walter's post. (Only the iris prices are out
of date!)

Cheers,

Mike,  mlowe@worldiris.com   --   http://www.worldiris.com

_______________________________________________
[Ed.  The one question submitted this issue was not your 'garden variety'
query--I have taken it upon myself to furnish an answer of sorts.]
-----------------------------------------------
QUESTION:  This is not a reblooming iris question, but your question and
answer column seems to be the only one in AIS magazines-so here goes.
I buy my iris from a large company. They give free bonus plants for orders
over a certain value.
Are these of comparable quality to the plants they sell? I am beginning to
suspect that they are like anything for nothing-exactly that.

Mid-western Iris fancier

PS - I will not be hurt if you choose not to answer this.
-----------------------------------------------
ANSWER:   First I would like to make a clear distinction between iris
developed to use as a bonus and those regularly priced, normally introduced
iris that are often given as free extras. You would expect the latter to
vary in quality as do iris in general. A very different situation is
encountered in iris introduced solely as a bonus giveaway. My off-hand
reaction is to say that generally, bonus iris tend towards the second rank.
If we grant that American Iris Society judges do a good job of evaluation
when voting iris awards we can perhaps obtain an objective answer by
examining AIS awards over a period of time. To this end I have compiled an
analysis of AIS awards given bonus iris versus awards won by priced
introductions. Specifically, one firm's bonus iris and their new
introductions offered for sale from 1981 to 1985 were tabulated for AIS
awards, HC on through AM.
The results were as follows:

Awards through 1989 on 75 introductions of one hybridizer - 1981-'85

20 free bonus plants...
	# of awards	 % winning awards
HCs		0	 	 0%
HMs		4		20%
AMs		0	 	 0%


55 introductions sold at normal 'New Iris' prices...
	# of awards	  % winning awards
HCs	 	19		34%
HMs	 	33		60%
AMs	  	 8		14.5%

From this tabulation, it would seem that the bonus iris are inferior when
compared against this companies priced introductions. A check of bonus
versus sale iris of two other firms reveals a similar trend.
Conclusion? - bonus iris tend to  be  sales enhancers. The garden value of
these plants is not highly thought of by AIS judges. It is one way of
obtaining recent introductions without paying the usual 25 to 35 dollars
charged for a hybridizer's top quality introductions. These may well be the
only 'brand new' iris many people will ever grow.

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