CULT: Survivors and Quality kin

Sandra, Linda and others in the line of fire/frost--

What Fred Kerr said a few days ago really applies.  The ones that come from a
cross where there are a lot of keepers (we're talking about quality here) tend
also to be the ones that are the best parents for quality.

Those that were the rare exceptions to the rule of regression I was talking
about earlier are not the parents the above tend to be.

I would suspect that the same observations can be applied to survivability as
can be to quality--when many from a family line do well in what Linda has so
aptly described as the "Swale of Despair" those sharing that lineage are the
ones most likely to be survivors also.  Makes sense, does it not?

There's a reason why the Nebraska-bred Sass irises were tough.  I think they
probably paid a high price early on in losses of the weak to get a line going
of blends, plicatas and what-all that could stand up to anything.

I find it interesting especially that some both of you have mentioned as
survivors are Willamette Valley, OR, bred varieties, especially the Schreiner
orchids.  There's more than just a trace of Midwest breeding involved early on
in that line, I think, although I haven't run it back to check.  If one takes
a look at AMETHYST FLAME's pedigree/family tree and made note of where the
ancestors originated, I suspect we would see just why some of the line today
thrive and bloom here in NC higher country, in the upper Tennessee Valley and
in Manitoba too.  We all share in those wild and abrupt temperature killers
that weed out the tender.

Neil Mogensen    z  7 (on alternate days) in the mountains of western NC

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