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Re: HYB: Seedling metamorphosis

Hi Kathy,

     You may be right to suggest that a plant might need to reach some sort of critical mass to perform at it's peak, in this case larger and more abundant bloom of better substance.  One would expect a plant to suffer in the process of transplantation, as roots are damaged and vital processes are disturbed.  To see some sign of this the following season is not unusual, but as you said the second season one would expect the plant to be back on track.  Could it be that even the second years bloom came from fans that had suffered damage during the transplanting process and perhaps not fully recovered.  Maybe the plant needed to bloom on new growth that had occurred after transplanting.  Environmental factors could be responsible for this as well.  Some bearded iris lose substance when subject to high heat and strong sun.  Lack of moisture can even strengthen the effect.  In bearded iris the temperature has to be quite high to have this happen, but perhaps for some setosas the temp. threshold is significantly lower.
     Kathy your observation that some of the larger flowered varieties seem more susceptible would lend credence to the plant mass/root establishment idea.  Keep us posted on your fertilizer test.

Michael Gullo
West Walworth, N.Y.
zone 6

Haggstroms wrote:

From: Haggstroms <hagg@alaska.net>
 

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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