Re: Re: AIS: question convention plant

    Linda, your thought isn't off base, it's right on target.  Hindsight is
very applicable here, I don't think a single person in our region had a full
vision of the monumental tasks waiting us to distribute the irises.   There
surely is more than one method to dealing with the distribution of the
irises, but with each idea, there are lots of factors affecting the results.
I have some observations, and they're just my opinions.

1.   I do not agree to having an open-ended policy to do whatever the
hybridizer wants in returning irises.   There is a HUGE expense connected
with this.   We made a mistake of encouraging so many guest iris, and I
believe we should have set limits to the number of varieties accepted from
each hybridizer.   Other conventions are doing this, they are wise.   Some,
including our largest contributing hybridizer wants everything returned
except 1 rhizome per variety... that is a huge shipping cost!    He/they/she
get a tremendous amount of publicity, they send us 3 or 6 of a particular
variety, and they get a return of perhaps 20 or more rhizomes.   In a
business sense, that's a dandy production return on the initial investment,
and not having to share or bear any growing cost or return postage costs of
the clump after 2 years of growth.
     I can understand that perhaps the newest introductions... 1, 2 or
perhaps 3 years old, should or could be returned by request, but returning
the 4, 5, 6 year irises, which have the largest quantities, is an expense a
region should NOT have to bear.   I'm really strong in my opinion on this.
There are many hybridizers who understand the work the guest gardens do and
the region does to host a convention, and many hybridizers were so generous
to allow most of their rhizomes to STAY within the region.   I just believe
the other hybridizers/commercial gardens should realize the burden they
place on the hosting group when they say they want all of their rhizomes
back.    I think the alternative would be to state that any rhizomes older
than 2 or 3 years, if requested to be returned, have the return postage paid
for by the hybridizer.   This would encourage the hybridizer to think twice
about the burden of the postage cost and hours of labor... any maybe they
would instead say, destroy those rhizomes, if they don't want them going
anywhere.

2.   I'm sure we've lost track of the hours put in by volunteers from
societies all over our region working with our irises.   We've chosen to
make our irises available to our societies and team with them so that
membership throughout our region derives a benefit.  If a more standard and
concise policy pertaining to just the newest varieties were followed, hours
upon hours of volunteer time could be saved; hours saved for the gardens
with a simpler set of digging instructions, hours and costs saved in
transporting truckloads of irises, hours saved in trimming and labeling
older varieties which aren't of the highest interest to buyers, hours saved
in sorting and handling irises multiple times.

Kitty Loberg
Volunteer spending many days with committee to sort/label/trim
   convention iris 4 hours from my home.
2004 Convention Treasurer
Reg14 Past RVP
Reg14 Treasurer and Webmaster
AIS, TBIS, SIS, SJI


> Thanks all - a <lot> of work for sure.  A wonder there isn't a rule that
> all plants are to be destroyed after convention.
>
> --
> Linda Mann east Tennessee USA zone 7/8
> East Tennessee Iris Society <http://www.korrnet.org/etis>

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