Re: HYB LUMINATAS

Thanks Gerry for reminding me that when we make a statement, sometimes 
we end up with more questions than we can answer.  Thank you Chuck 
also for all helping us try to understand these patterns.  

In Oklahoma and other less favorable growth areas, 
plicatas/luminatas/glaciatas (plg for short) are generally weaker in 
growth and disease resistance.  There are exceptions to this.  So, 
what does that tell us?  You are certainly correct in questioning my 
linking recessive patterns as a direct causative factor of these 
weaker characteristics.  I think Chuck is headed in the right 
direction.  
First, we have a lot smaller breeding population to choose from and so 
end up using parents that have less than ideal genes to pass on.  
Second, if we have chosen parents to use that have these flaws, we 
also know that those flaws will be passed along at the same rate or at 
a greater rate than the traits we want.  If we look at where most of 
the line breeding of "plg" came from and the weaknesses of those 
lines, it is easier to understand the associated weaknesses that exist 
now.  

Third, there are those linkages that occur that are hard to break.  
Again, someone with a better scientific mind than mine will have to 
work this one through.  One example I get when I talk with other 
hybridizers is that when you get the luminata pattern, you also get 
poor branching and few buds.  It seems hard to break this link, but it 
isn't impossible. 

This is off the "plg" pattern, but a link I found interesting.  One 
aspect that makes it even more intersting is that the cross was made 
both ways.  The cross was (Mystique X Twist Of Fate) and the reverse 
(Twist Of Fate X Mystique)  It was a cross that yielded wonderful 
seedlings.  There was just one problem and it occured in both crosses. 
 As the intensity of the ruffling and "great form" and contrast of 
light to dark in the standards and falls increased, so did the 
incidence of overbloom.  I could walk down the row and the seedlings 
with the prettiest form and ruffling and nearest to white standards 
and black falls would be totally bloomed out.  There would be 4 or 5 
bloomstalks and no evidence of an increase whatever.  This pattern 
isn't normally associated with overbloom, but in this case, it was 
very closely linked to it in some way.  

Back to Gerry's question.  As "they" say, selection is everything.  
Well, and maybe a bit of luck too.  If we have selected parents based 
on the best phenotypic and genepotypic traits possible for a 
particular pattern, be it dominant or recessive, we stand a far better 
chance of maintaing the plant and flower quality we want.  Even at 
that, there are always surprises - good and bad. 

Paul Black
Zone 8  Salem, Oregon 

In iris-talk@egroups.com, Gerry Snyder <gerrysnyder@m...> wrote:
> PAUL BLACK wrote:
> > 
> > ....  That is one of the hazards of
> > working with recessive patterns is that they are usually weaker.
> 
> Any ideas about how much of this effect is directly caused 
> by the visible recessive patterns, and how much by other genes 
> that got concentrated in these cultivars by the line-breeding 
> used to develop them?
> 
> Gerry
> -- 
> g*@m...
> Gerry Snyder, AIS Symposium Chair, Region 15 RVP
> Member San Fernando Valley, Southern California Iris Societies
> in warm, winterless Los Angeles
> my work: helping generate data for: http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov/


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