Re: No Subject
- To: i*@Rt66.com
- Subject: Re: No Subject
- From: W*@miavx1.acs.muohio.edu
- Date: Sat, 23 Mar 1996 07:58:50 -0500 (EST)
> I havn't sprouted many Iris seeds In my life, buuutttt perhaps I shouldn't
> bother. Practices such as these mentioned may prevent beutiful Iris from
> ever being seen. Some nobody somewhere may cross a break through in some
> desirable trait.
> Lonnie
**
That is my worry with the present system, that somewhere within those
scores and scores of irises that I haven't seen there is something great
that is going unnoticed. I think I can passably evaluate the ones
I know, and coupled with other judges, we will do ok on the ones
that have had some reasonable distribution. However, we are deceiving
ourselves to pretend that all of the irises have had fair consideration
just because they appeared on the ballot. We have no way to distinguish
in marking our ballots the evaluated-and-thought-not-worthy from the
not-evaluated. It might be interesting to do a factor analysis of HM
awards to see to what extent they correlate with independent judgments
of quality and with distribution and with advertising.
I don't think we should license hybridizers or try to restrict
introductions. After all, for the most part we live in free countries.
There are good aspects to the ideas, there, though--it certainly does
help a beginner to have guidance from experienced hybridizers and
judges, and our system should encourage that.
Giving another year does seem a step in the right direction, and it
would make a positive incremental change. With that, I might be able
to see a couple of dozen more than I do now. If that is the only
realistic step we can take, I'm for it.
Our main problem is sheer numbers, and I had thought about ways to
divide the task among us, since there are a lot of us too. Having
a regional primary level before the HM level is one approach, but it
has disadvantages of an unequal distribution of prolific hybridizers
and of not encouraging early distribution to a wide range of growing
conditions. Maybe there is some other way to divide up the task?
The regional test garden idea is very attractive. I would love to be
able to visit a few gardens and see lots of candidates under similar
growing conditions. Probably the closest thing we do to that now is
hold conventions, and we don't get all the introductions contributed
to those as guests.
Another approach might combine the pre-selection idea with the
guidance sought after by the licensers. We have a system of HCs
now, where judges commend unintroduced irises. Maybe that could
be expanded to include introduced irises as well, and the iris
would need to get some number of HC votes before a distribution
period and then going on the HM ballot. If I were a hybridizer,
I would certainly like a system that gave me feedback before I
undertook to carpet the world with my new baby.
Anyway, enough rambling for now. It is good to see all of these
thoughts percolating along.
--Jim
--
Jim Wilson, Miami Valley Iris Society, SW Ohio, USA, Zone 6a, AIS garden judge
growing TBs, medians, SIBs, JIs, & a few SPU & species. wilsonjh@muohio.edu