Deno's Book

Iris species are only a small part of Norman Deno's book.  I have the second
edition, which is "Based on Experiments on 145 Families, 805 Genera, and about
2500 Species."   I hope someone else can provide the detailed how-to-order
information for the latest edition.  I have the address, but don't know the
price.

This is not a simple how-to manual.  Its value is in the amount of detailed
background material he provides concerning the various factors that affect
germination.  For iris, both chemical and physical inhibitors are significant
and overall germination requirements vary greatly among the different species.
That's not surprising when you consider the vastly different climates of their
native lands.  If you're interested in the whys & wherefores, you'll get a lot
out of his book.  I certainly did.  

I'd been experimenting with the aril species for many years, trying to replicate
the experiments & techniques I found reported in various iris publications.  I'd
learned a great many things that DON'T work with the arils and a few that DO.
Deno's results with 3-month cycles were not as good as my own with shorter ones,
but his mention of the effect of oscillating temperatures in some other species
made me wonder whether even my 7-to-10 day cycle was too long.  

So I embarked on an 18-month controlled study that simulated summer with 3
months at 70 degrees, fall with three months of day's at about 70 and nights at
below 40, winter with 3 months below  40 and spring with another 3 months of
diurnal cycling.  I separated each group of seeds into five lots.  One started
with simulated "summer", one with "fall", one with "winter", one with "spring",
and one served as the control group subjected to Deno's treatment. 

Because it covers so many species, the detailed entry for each one is relatively
sparse and the result of small-scale experiments -- but they do contain many
valuable clues even when they don't provide definitive answers so I recommend
his book highly to those who share my tendency to conduct controlled
experiments.

For those of you working with easy-to-germinate seeds, however, I'll concede
that this book probably contains far more than you either need or want to know.

Sharon McAllister (73372.1745@compuserve.com)
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