RE: Red-toned rebloomers

The blues, reds and purples will tell you their story re having the t factor, if you ask correctly.
First pull off a fall. Check beard to see if it obviously is a red tangerine type beard. The red bearded blues are obvious, Others are more subtle, but there ususlly is visable some cartenoid pigment at base of fall. It is either yellow or the lycopene red. If there is too much anthocyanin to see, there is a solution. Put petal in a dish and pour boiling water on it. You may need to do this a few times , but it will remove all anthocyanin and let you see the lycopene or yellow pigment, whichever is there.
If beard is an orange, and you are still not sure, then you can heat the fall up in alcohol in a heat proof measuring cup suspended in a pot of boiling water. This will remove anthocyanin and the carenoid pigments, leaving the lycopene, which will be pink in this situation. In this case be sure to have some good ventalation and not have face over the pot. 

A lot quicker then doing a test cross.
To test if something is a recessive reduction of anthocyanin as versus the dominant reduction of anthocyanin ( known as the "I" gene) you cross with a flower with anthocyani, I prefer a blue for this test. If it is recessive, then all the seedlings will have anthocyanin. A total of 10 blooming seedlings will give you a 95% confidence level.
I don't agree with rra genes giving more anthocyanin in base. Bary Blyth breeds with rra, probably the only one who does it deliberatly. All of his stuff is clean, both from his rra or his DRA ("I") lines. Actuall they have been crossed back and forth a few times, so many plants could have both.
All iris originally had haft markings. Over time this has been selected against in solid colours. But not with plicatas as the haft marks don't distract from the stitched , dotted and saplashed colours. they go with plicatas. Acordingly, most often a cross of a solid with a plicata ( ie: Golden Immortal X Renowen) will produce a lot of haft marks. This is not a sign of a rra genetic base. The fact that there were so many seedlings without anthocyanin it would suggest the I gene funtioning in this case. 

Chuck Chapman






From: Ann Head <jac@labdude.com>
Sent: Jun 10, 2008 12:08 AM
To: iris@hort.net
Subject: Re: [iris] RE: Red-toned rebloomers (was RE: First 08 
rebloomers)


But if such a blue with four copies of t were crossed to a pink with
a dominant white gene, you should be able to get pink seedlings?
Yes, that is absolutely true. However, the only way you would know if a blue is carrying 4 copies of lycopene is if all the carotenoid producing seedlings it produces with pinks are pink. The only way you can tell is by breeding behavior. There are no visual identifications, except maybe if it has tangerine red beards or maybe some tinge in the crests. Atest cross with a pink with a diminant white gene might be helpful assuming you can afford the space and time. But if you are breeding for red then a dominat white gene is really of no interest to you. The recessive whites would be the route to go.
The recessive whites and blues/purples ect. (I have observed) have a much greater tendency to be cold climate rebloomers (Zone 5 and colder). I'm guessing there is a very tight linkage between the Dominant white gene and one of the rebloom genes. So far getting the right combination of rebloom genes and a Dominant white gene into the same set of chromosomes has been very difficult. It has been done I think. I have a very small list of plants I think are Dominant white, cold climate rebloomers and have been trying to obtain some of them over the years to get them into my breeding program and see if they are actually what I think they are. The only one I am sure of is one of my own seedlings.
Yes, oddly enough carotenoid amoenas are recessive. Generally you will only get selfs of or pale standards when you cross a caotenoid amoena with a uniformly applied carotenoid flower. When you cross a carotenoid amoena with another carotenoid amoena all you get is carotenoid amoenas assuming all the seedlings show carotenoids. And not to confuse the issue but clarify, carotenoid amoenas can have anthocyanin as well such as in 'Electrique' or a blue self with carotenoid falls or 'Chinese Treasure' or 'Starring' which are carotenoid AND an anthocyanin amoenas combined.
So (in theory) you can combine carotenoid plicatas with all the anthocyanin patterns and some of the other carotenoid patterns because they are controlled independently. 


Paul Archer
Raleigh, NC  Zne 8

---------------------------------------------------------------------
To sign-off this list, send email to majordomo@hort.net with the
message text UNSUBSCRIBE IRIS
Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index