Re: HYB: reliability vs health

 One correction re: "troubles" in the vale - if every iris I got had
thrived, I would never have embarked on this happy hobby.  I love
exploring, experimenting, the whole process, mostly its highs (i.e.,
surprise rebloom), but the lows (i.e., mass damping off episode),  help
make the highs even better. <g>

All my irises are grown in the same "contaminated" soil, except when I
add a new row.  The new rows are right next to the old rows and the
diseases get to them quite nicely <g>  I don't rotate or renew or solar
sterilize, just plant new aquisitions/seedlings in the spots vacated by
the most recent death or other departure.  Only renovation is pushing a
spade fork as deep as I can and loosening the rocks/gravel.

You make an excellent point about reliability vs healthy foliage, and
it's one I don't quite know how to handle in order to reach my goal of
the 'best' performers here.  The plants with the healthiest foliage
sometimes don't bloom well here - either low stalk to fan ratio, as
Betty mentioned (i.e., FEED BACK, IMMORTALITY), frozen out bloom stalks,
or won't set pods/produce pollen.

Some with susceptible foliage and occasional rot (i.e., CELEBRATION
SONG) are reliable as can be, nice stalk to fan ratio, highly pollen
fertile.  In the right cross, they sometimes produce remarkably disease
resistant foliage in seedlings (i.e., <most> of the 48 surviving babies
from IMMORTALITY X CSONG cross).

More often, the foliage is between both parents in disease resistance.

There are some with susceptible foliage (i.e., VANITY) and some with
healthy foliage (i.e., NIGHT GAME) that hardly ever any rot but are
nearly infertile here.

Bee pods from some of the not so healthy cultivars have produced some
incredibly robust, good stalk to fan ratio, readily fertile seedlings
(i.e., PINK FORMAL).  The blooms are retro, but some have never rotted
(5 yrs?) have good branching, bud count, reliable height and bloom.

What is a pollen dauber to do....

For now, I'm going in way too many directions at once (definitely
following BB's advice to cross everything with everything, although I
didn't know that was his advice!). One direction is using the super
healthy foliage cultivars (mostly  Lloyd Z's older introductions) as pod
parents, wider, fancier, more complex genes as pollen parents.

Another is using the super reliable bloomers that have susceptible
foliage (mostly really robust historics - i.e., HELEN COLLINGWOOD, PINK
FORMAL)) as pod parent and experimenting with various moderately healthy
modern stuff to see how possible/impossible it is to modernize form and
make nice patterns.

Too soon to see where this is all going to wind up - only started making
a <lot> of crosses in 2002.

INDIAN CHIEF is another one with terrible foliage that has to be the
world's most robust, reliable grower/bloomer, except maybe I. pallida.
I haven't used it any - it's a little too early for my frost pocket
location.

They say cross 'best' to 'best', but finding the 'best' disease
resistant irises for here has been impossible, except for tips from you
folks, swaps with local club members, and buying and killing a <lot> of
cultivars.

I wish someone in iris heaven (with dry summer climate - west coast, Oz)
would run a disease resistance trial garden for the top award winning
irises using overhead watering all summer and spraying with leaf spot
bacteria and fungi and <no> grooming or other disease management.

In any case, I'm using <both> reselect criteria, and not being very
consistent about which one I use for any particular cross.

<I was thinking about your troubles in the vale earlier today and I
decided I need you to clarify your standards on health further... which
you did a bit in this post.>

< It occured to me that it is theoretically possible for a cultivar to
survive, even bloom and increase while being completely covered with
leaf spot.  I have seen a few such in my neighbors yard.  But that may
be a completely different bird from a cv that can grow in the same
infected bed and not show any (or maybe hardly any) leaf spot at all.
And depending on exactly which you were aiming for it would be a
different reselect category.   Christian   ky>

--
Linda Mann east Tennessee USA zone 7/8
East Tennessee Iris Society <http://www.korrnet.org/etis>
American Iris Society web site <http://www.irises.org>
talk archives: <http://www.hort.net/lists/iris-talk/>
photos archives: <http://www.hort.net/lists/iris-photos/>
online R&I <http://www.irisregister.com>

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