De-cloak, suggestion about new Intro's

        I have been reading this group for some time now and could not resist 
putting my two cents in. I have been involved with iris's early in life, skipped
some 20 years and have been collecting newer varieties for the past 5 years. I 
don't want to become a hybidizer but enjoy growing all plants from seed 
including my own random iris hybrid seed. I have always wondered what methods 
one would use to amass enough stock of a variety for introduction ? Perhaps this
is why they say it takes ten years to make one.

        In thinking about the discussion on how to handle the large number of 
introductions and whether to consider some licensing scheme (to me a bad idea), 
I immediately thought of the rating system currently used for Rhododendrons. In 
this scheme a number rating (1 lowest to 5 highest) is applied to two aspects of
a cultivar, one for flower and the other for foliage. For Irises the number 
scheme could be applied in such a way as to take into account the relative 
merits of one hybrid when compared to the current best offering in the same 
class and type. i.e. a TB blue self should be compared with other existing TB 
blue selfs and not other colors which are less well developed. 

        In use this would have two purposes, one to help gardeners such as 
myself choose between the many varieties available, and secondly as a measure of
worthiness for introduction and once introduced for consideration when choosing 
among new intro.'s , allowing those interested to concentrate on the most 
outstanding of the new intro.'s.

Chad Schroter  - garden person forced to write software,  gardening in Los Gatos
California
cschrote@qntm.com
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