Re: Distribution of energy/buds
iris@hort.net
  • Subject: Re: Distribution of energy/buds
  • From: C* C* <i*@aim.com>
  • Date: Sun, 4 Dec 2011 19:27:35 -0500 (EST)
Each flower is counted. Not just growing points. I count only the buds that produce flowers. Sometimes plant runs out of energy before last few buds open ,and they abort.
The ideal flower count, as reported by some hybridizers, never seem to be obtainable by the majority of growers.
Plants collect energy while maturing and continue as they flower. Plants are genetically programed to put energy first into flowers, and then into increases. As with annuals, seeds produce the next generation. And that still seems to be genetic programing with perennials. But with perennials, next generations are both new plant plus seeds. So after flowers are produced, any extra energy is spent on increases. Luckily increases start to grow after bud set, so many can be large enough function relatively independently. If bud set is late in season, they may not get energy needed from mother rhizome in spring. Leading to slow growth. 

Chuck Chapman



-----Original Message-----
From: Eugene Baxley <baxleyeugene@yahoo.com>
To: iris <iris@hort.net>
Sent: Sun, Dec 4, 2011 7:02 pm
Subject: [iris] Iris  digest V1 # 1365
I agree with Chuck Chapman. There is a finite amount of energy available to an iris plant. It seems each plant will distribute that available energy in it's own way. A good example of this is the popular iris put out by some of our most popular hybridizers that have small rhizomes, small, short stems, small 
leaves and big beautiful blooms with lots of frills and/or lace. Here in
Alabama most of those iris will almost disappear in the Winter and the
rhizomes will break into many pieces. In late Fall to Spring when you look at 
them it looks as if you have a bunch of seedlings, about three inches
high, growing in the place of a clump. They do not grow well here so they are being eliminated. I have seveal iris from several of those same hybridizers that have big rhizomes, big, tall stems, tall wide leaves and normal size 
blooms for Spring. They do well.

There is a question I want to ask no matter
how stupid it sounds. How do you count buds on an iris? If I have an iris stem that has three triple sockets that produce three flowers each, is that nine buds? I have not usually been able to obtain the number of buds, either way, that the catalogs say an iris produces. Perhaps if I count them correctly, I 
can get the correct count.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
To sign-off this list, send email to majordomo@hort.net with the
message text UNSUBSCRIBE IRIS

---------------------------------------------------------------------
To sign-off this list, send email to majordomo@hort.net with the
message text UNSUBSCRIBE IRIS
Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index