Re: HYB: "strength"

Seems to be some confusion about what various people mean by
strength/vigor etc of seedlings, maybe because we are talking about
different age seedlings and different ways people handle and select
seedlings?

I was assuming folks meant they were selecting the biggest babies when
they are only a week or so old, 2 to 5 inches tall, with 3 or 4 leaf
blades.  At this stage, the first to germinate are usually the biggest
and their size seems to have no relationship to how "strong" they will
be after lining out.

Jim said he only lines out the strongest seedlings, but I didn't think
to ask him how big they are when he makes that decision (I'll ask).

Because I'm trying to speed germination and early growth, I'm
transplanting from the seedling pots (so I can put the ungerminated
seeds back outdoors for more chilling) into bigger pots, where babies
will stay until I line them out in the garden.

Some of the babies don't ever recover from the shock of the first
transplant.

By the time I line them out, survival is anywhere from 0 to 100%
(depending on the cross), but even at that stage, I can't tell by
looking at any individual seedling whether it will survive exposure to
the pathogen/stress selection here.

Crosses are often down to only a few seedlings by bloom time - 5 to 10
is a high survival rate here.  Crosses that have high losses after the
first transplanting also have high losses in the garden rows, &
sometimes, none survive.

This is the first time I've had so many seedlings germinate - too many
to handle easily, which is why I was wondering.

Betty, at what size do you evaluate seedling "strength"?

< I think it would be very difficult to discard seedlings based on size
alone in a seedling pot.  Their behavior is usually quite different once
in a garden soil.  They could be selected after they have had a few
months to grow.  Foliage characteristics are more obvious then (i.e.
grassy verses wide leaves, twisty leaves verses very straight, floppy
verses rigid, maybe even offset production on a few, ect.) This would be
the optimum time I would think to cull for the top 20, 40 or 60
percent.  But If I'm correct that is not what was proposed previosly in
earlier emails.>

--
Linda Mann east Tennessee USA zone 7/8
East Tennessee Iris Society <http://www.korrnet.org/etis>
American Iris Society web site <http://www.irises.org>
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