Re: HYB:Breeding Philosophy

One of the very best things about the iris people is their willingness to share information.  It has been so helpful to me to see which irises are good parents.  

Right now I have been making crosses with one parent that produces strong rebloom in our area crossed on another with good width and form.  The plan is to cross the resulting seedlings back together and hopefully get a few with the rebloom genes and the form I want.  Finding it gets harder though as time goes on- I am starting to NEED more and more ruffles.  

There were some pleasant surprises I did get many out of season stalks  from the Braggadocio, and  Rio crosses.  I wasnt expecting to have much rebloom at all from my first generation crosses so it was very nice to get as many as I did.

All American was a good parent for form, but I am not sure that it will bring enough of the rebloom trait to the table.   I did get some late fall stalks on a Yaquina Blue X All American seedling.  Too bad that they were at a critical point in their growth when I dug them to bring them inside.  The buds just shriveled, darn.  The two sibs from the cross that bloomed this spring had excellent form, bud count and stalks.  I will probably use Yaquina on some of my bicolor seedlings this spring.

I plan to use Decadence, Sea Power, Rio, Braggadocio, and Fogbound on as many different rebloomers as I can.  As for the rebloom parent, I will keep using Rosalie Figge when I can get it to set pods, Matrix, Golden Immortal and Clarence.  Patty Ann, Summer Radiance, Cornhusker and Radiant Bliss will be some of the new rebloomers that Ill be throwing into the mix.  

I have enough Pink Attraction seedlings to work with now.  It throws so many hafts lines that Id just as soon work with something that produces cleaner seedlings.  It did give decent form and did produce quite a few seedlings that bloomed out of season.  The flowers were smaller, though in proportion with the shorter stalks.  Pinkness may be a bit better as a parent.

The most disappointing crosses were probably from Masterwork.  Branching was decent, but form was really lacking, and flower size was quite small.   The Winterland seedlings were not especially promising either.

Hopefully I will get caught up here and will have time to post a few more photos of the seedlings.

Robin Shadlow
zone 5 NE

sorry this got so long winded


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