FEATURE ATTRACTION, ET.AL.
- To: Multiple recipients of list <i*@rt66.com>
- Subject: FEATURE ATTRACTION, ET.AL.
- From: R*@aol.com
- Date: Sat, 18 Jan 1997 11:08:59 -0700 (MST)
Sounds to me like FEATURE ATTRACTION can join BEST BET and DUSKY CHALLENGER
as bloom-out champs. Warm climate hybridizers use these at their peril
because the feature is certainly genetic. There is probably more than one
kind of bloom-out. Sometimes you get bloom-out because the mother fan blooms
without increase. Other times you get increase, even good increase, but every
fan blooms. I recall one year when I planted back 3 increases of BEST BET and
also planted, next in the row, 3 rhizomes BEST BET from Oregon. The 3 I grew
bloomed without increase. The 3 from Oregon bloomed normally. The following
year the increase from these again bloomed without increase.
As hybridizers we sometimes forget that natural selection is still going on
in the seed pots and the seedling beds. Every generation of seedlings grown
in the same garden is going to become more and more suited to that garden and
at the same time less suited to gardens with different conditions. When you
see great complicated parentages in the registration book, you should suspect
the variety might not be as adaptable as some others. This is why it is very
important to keep bringing into the breeding stock not only new blood, but
also varieties developed under different garden conditions. This is why I
look for breeding stock from the eastern part of the country as well as
foreign introductions.
Some very important breeding lines are highly inbred for five and six
generations to arrive at the desired goal. Introductions from such lines
should be grown several years for evaluation of hardiness and freedom from
conditions such as bloom-out before they are used in the breeding program.
Fred Kerr, Rainbow Acres, Region 14, USDA zone 9.
