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Re: HYB: Seedling metamorphosis

From: Haggstroms <hagg@alaska.net>

 
From: Gullo <tgf@frontiernet.net>

     Not only can the amount of sun make a difference in the color, but
temperature variations can impact the color as well.
     Temperature also can play a role in stalk height and branching and likely
flower size and form.  Other cultural variables also play a role: the amount of
moisture, fertilizer, additional soil amendments and their frequency and timing
can all conspire to alter a plants characteristics in any given bloom season.
     The advice to observe a seedling over the course of 3 or more seasons to
gauge it's performance seems to me to be quite sound.
         Three years not only gives you an opportunity to test for color stability,
form, branching and the like, but also and perhaps more importantly, it gives
you the chance to see just how durable and vigorous a seedling may be.
 

Perhaps this is a related phenomenon -  I collected a setosa in the wild that had large, husky blooms,  dynamic signal and rich plum falls. I took a small part of a large mature clump. When it bloomed in my bog,  the few blooms were large, but raggedy looking, with weakish stems. I was disappointed but figured they would improve the next year, but was doubly disappointed to see more raggedy blooms with the same weakish stems. It took this plant until the third year to be able to put on a decent show. I think that because of the large blossoms, the plant can't produce stout enough stems or any quantity of flowers until it reaches a certain maturity/foliage mass. I 'm not certain what produces the raggedy quality early on, but I'm hesitant to use it for any breeding, even though it's one of my favorite "wildlings" at maturity.
Every once in a while I run into this phenomenon, a plant that just doesn't look good until it reaches its maturity, and then is superior. Mine have always involved plants with unusually large flowers. I surmise, as above, that the green/root mass cannot do such genetically predisposed giantesses justice until they can provide a certain level of nourishment, and thus, actually cause the flower to be inferior until maturity.
I don't know if this is the case, so last fall, I divided my three Amazon clumps into halves. I will be fertilizing one half of each clump to see if that is correct, that they need more nutrients to look good quicker. If so, I will have a dilemma, because one of my breeding goals is to produce garden worthy plants that have the typically modest setosa fertilizer requirements and need very little pesticide/disease control (carefree plants, as befits their reputation). I'm not keen on perpetuating a plant that will require extra fertilizer to look good for two or three years. But..... I DO like those flowers.
I've considered taking them away from my cultivated bog to a wild unpopulated one if they prove to require the extra coddling, to let them have at it, and see what they can produce among themselves. It might be impressive and instructional. My thinking is that they may produce a specimen which has the large, handsome flowers and the extra plant vigor necessary to support them.
Kathy Haggstrom
Anch, AK
zone 3

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