Re: hybridizing (was: Re: a little chromosome essay)

In a message dated 96-03-11 15:21:43 EST, you write:

>It is simply a matter of placing one flower's pollen on another's stigma.

tom -  Hah!  not in MY very special garden......

>Bearded irises are particularly easy to hybridize because, unlike many
>plants, they only rarely set seed on their own, so most hybridizers do
>not bother to "protect" their crosses by putting bags around the blooms
>or something similar.

i have tried to get these stupid plants to make seeds off and on for a few
years.  i get better take on i. pallida (which ought not to work very well)
than with my tbs, and i get more bee pods (and not many of them)  than the
ones i try to get.  i have my first successful live seedling from a tb out
there this year (bee pod from INDIAN CERAMICS), and three more that may turn
out to be pallida babies (the beloved dog rearranged the labels for me).
 what am i doing wrong (other than trying to grow tb's here in the first
place)?  is it important how soon or late after opening the cross is done?

i use forceps to grab a stamen out of the pollen parent, then after looking
at it to make sure i can see lots of  pollen grains,  i smear it around on
the stigma.  it seems so simple, although the first year, i put the pollen on
the crest of the style, which apparently was close enough for pallida.

linda mann e tenn usa
Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index