HYB: Marking Crosses
iris@hort.net
  • Subject: HYB: Marking Crosses
  • From: <M*@msn.com>
  • Date: Tue, 2 Feb 2010 21:04:21 -0500
My system is much like Betty's.  Twist ties instead of yarn, string in close
quarters.
A few years ago, I started retiring numbers from the list long-term, when I
got a cross to take.
Before that, I wound up with crosses #05-33, 06-33, and 07-33.  Too much
chance for confusion
in my aging brain.  A couple of years back, my marker ran out and I tried an
empty ball point pen
dipped in cheap (50 cents per small bottle) black acrylic craft paint.  Works
and lasts as well as
anything, and I'm still working on the first bottle. I use the same set of
tags year after year.

I'm always trying to set seeds on triple-socketed iris, and have found it
vital to mark the orientation
of the bloom pollinated in my notebook: NW= northwest, SE=southeast, C=center
bloom.  Also, when
I can tell a pod is forming, I circle that number in my notebook.  Came in
very handy after the tornado
came by last year. I quit trying to write the number on the pod after I
knocked a couple off.  I'm not
dexterous enough, I guess.

I've also started making extra markers for seedlings that have become parents.
Started doing that after
I discovered I'd used that same big orange (Harvest Of Memories X Rio) three
years in a row without
realizing it.  The "parent" markers read like: PD 07-113  for pod parent (PL
for pollen parent).  These
markers prompt me to go see the progeny before using it again, and may save it
from extinction (or not!).
Until a pod has formed, the seedling parent is in my notebook as, for example:
05-170 4th.  This takes
some extra time, but since pods are set when I do it, it's that or pull weeds.
I'd rather be making markers.

Mary Lou, near Indianapolis, Z5

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