Re: cultivars and disease
- Subject: Re: cultivars and disease
- From: t*@Lanl.GOV (Tom Tadfor Little)
- Date: Fri, 16 Feb 96 09:10:17 MST
Lowell writes
|I hope we won't be too quick to label cultivars as disease prone. I don't
|doubt that there's a genetic component to most diseases, but many other
|variables are involved in the actual contracting of the disease. Nutrition,
|watering, soil, garden location and luck are all possible contributors. I
|have found that irises in a certain part of my garden may have more disease--
|a fact that seems to rule out genetics as a factor.
|
|I hate to hear a cultivar,or worse the total work of a hybridizer, maligned
|because someone's iris died. I don't hesitate to replace lost plants of
|appealing varities and it almost always grows well the next time.
I agree with this. I think iris connoisseurs are often quick to explain
every aspect of an iris's performance on the variety. If I lose a plant
in my garden (iris or anything else), I'll give it three tries before
writing it off: buy it again (perhaps from a different source), plant
it in a different spot, and see what happens. If it dies three times,
I conclude that it's not suited to my garden. But if it dies once and
I don't bother to replace it, I don't condemn the plant. As Lowell
points out, the reason for its demise could be just about anything.
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Tom Tadfor Little tlittle@lanl.gov -or- telp@Rt66.com
technical writer/editor Los Alamos National Laboratory
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Telperion Productions http://www.rt66.com/~telp/
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