Re: Louisiana Iris seed

From: "heather & bernard pryor" <irishaven@pip.com.au>


-----Original Message-----
From: Bill Shear <BILLS@hsc.edu>
To: iris-talk@onelist.com <iris-talk@onelist.com>
Date: Friday, August 28, 1998 11:17 PM
Subject: [iris-talk] Louisiana Iris seed


>From: Bill Shear <BILLS@hsc.edu>
>
>Here's a question for you LA hybridizers.  When you plant your seeds, do
>you rub off the corky outer coat, or leave it on? Does it make a
>difference?  Do you stratify your seeds if you do not plant directly in the
>ground?  Does it make a difference?
>
>Bill Shear
>Department of Biology
>Hampden-Sydney College
>Hampden-Sydney VA 23943
>(804)223-6172
>FAX (804)223-6374
>email<bills@hsc.edu>
>
>What was the best thing BEFORE sliced bread?
> -IAQ (Infrequently Asked Questions)
>
>
>
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Dear Bill,

I treat my Louisiana iris seeds in a manner as close to their natural
situation as possible.  Once the pods are harvested and shucked the seeds
are then planted almost immediately.

The pods are covered here as soon as they have "taken" by nylon pantihose
"booties".  The skin coloured ones are best as they seem to disguise the
delicious green pod from insets, who think that the seed pod is a dried up
bit of leaf.  They leave them alone on the whole.   The booties are also
very helpful in catching any pods which split before I can harvest them.

I don't bother to rub off the corky shell - just bung them in to pots and
leave the rest to Mother Nature.  We have experimented with a variety of
methods regarding germination over the years and have found (for us) that
picking the pod and planting them almost immediately gives us the best
results.

I like Patrick O'Connor's "timetable" and advise that we use a similar one
here.  We try to pick our pods on Australia Day (26th January) and have all
of the seeds planted by Bernard's Birthday (2nd February).  We combine the
celebrations for the birth of our nation (and my favourite person) with our
iris seeds - makes for one big happy family!!

We then fill the pot with soil, press the seeds gently into the soil by
hand, then put a light sprinkling of soil over the top of the seeds.  We
water in well and keep the pots moist at all times.  Sydney usually gets a
lot of rain in humid February, and this seems to get the seeds off and away
for us, with the first seedlings popping up by Easter.

Come Spring we then split up the pots and plant out the individual seedlings
into smaller pots.  This gives them a chance to get over the shock of
separation and by the time they have settled in to the pot culture we have
the garden space ready for them.  It is then a simple matter of digging the
hole and putting the established seedling into the garden - hey presto a
happy, well-adjusted seedling is on its way!

John Taylor has used a similar system to this for many years, but has lately
changed over to planting the new seeds straight into prepared ground.  I
will let you know how successful/unsuccessful this has been for him.

I hope that this is all of some interest.

Cheers for now,  Heather Pryor  irishaven@pip.com.au





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