Re: HYB: First Crosses

Linda Mann wrote: 
To me, I. pallida, diploid species, is still the
standard for potent sweet fragrance. If you are in
love with the modern award winners, that's not a good
choice, but Tom Silvers will vouch for the fun of
working with species irises. 

------------------------------------------------

Amen to that, Linda! On all counts!
Iris pallida is a standard for great fragrance for me
too. And I sure AM enjoying the heck out of working
with the diploid bearded species. Speaking of which,
two of the possibly relevant "scent-breeding" notes,
that I can relate for Matthew Booker, are:

1) That every seedling from the cross of KUPARI (a
white pallida) X ROSEMARY'S DREAM (a great plicata
MTB) has the same wonderful strong sweet scent. I'm
strongly considering registration and introduction of
at least one of these guys, in spite of them being a
little old-fashioned. They're all plicatas and
fairly-big, TB-ish sized plants. If I enjoy them so
much, somebody else probably would too. KUPARI crossed
with various other irises has given me a whole range
of intensities and qualities of scent -- but not
always good and/or strong. 

2) I got one seedling with a very interesting and
surprisingly different [close to lilac maybe] scent
from (KUPARI x suaveolens var. rubromarginata) X CLOWN
PANTS: (which is Iris variegata X suaveolens var.
mellita). 

I'm going to be using the seedling (mentioned in #2)
in combination with the others (mentioned in #1), to
breed for good, strong (and hopefully unique too)
fragrances.

I realize that there are plenty of fragrant
tetraploids out there to work with; but one advantage
you should have at the diploid level, is the
relatively faster progress that you can make.

Good luck with your first crosses, no matter which
ways you decide to go with them. We'll be looking
forward to hearing more about them.
Take care, Tom









 
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