Re: Tom's Crosses
- To: i*@Rt66.com
- Subject: Re: Tom's Crosses
- From: t*@Lanl.GOV (Tom Tadfor Little)
- Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 09:18:12 -0700
Lowell writes
:Tom Little made passing mention of some wide crosses he has been making.
: Intriguing! Tom, I hope you will share some of the specifics with your
:cyber penpals.
You may regret encouraging me....<g>
My original plan for the main focus of my hybridizing was 48-chromosome
medians. Several people have been working with I.aphylla, but I wanted
to use I.balkana, which is actually MDB size, in the hopes of creating
a whole series of dwarf and median irises that are part of the same
fertile family as the TBs. Since I haven't been able to get I.balkana,
this project is sort of on hold; however, I do fool around with some
of the tetraploid MTBs and the Craigs' smaller things, just to keep me
in the mood. Many of these do not cross easily, or are only fertile one
way.
With the main program parked on the sidelines, I've been indulging my
"second main program": using the tetraploid arils to make new amphidiploid
arilbreds, especially of the aril-pumila type. I have a firm conviction
that there's a wonderful, exciting, fertile family of dwarf arilbreds just
waiting to see the light of day. Francesca Thoolen is working hard in this
direction, too. I'm also crossing the tet. arils with TBs and with the
aphylla-based 48-chromosome medians. The idea is to widen the gene pool
of the arilbreds just as much as possible, mixing in blood from modern
TBs and I.aphylla. The arilbred median class could really come alive
if we made a group of fertile halfbreds in the median size range!
But yes, these are wide crosses. The tetraploid aril seedlings from
Norris and Holden are a little stand-offish when it comes to crossing
with off-beat bearded irises; some of them have only limited fertility
to begin with. To date, I have one (ONE, 1) seedling from I.aphylla x
Holden's tet. Ht33T to show for my pollen smearing. I'll be *really*
ticked off if the thing blooms and looks like it came from a contaminated
cross. >:[
Cheers, Tom.
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Tom Tadfor Little tlittle@lanl.gov -or- telp@Rt66.com
technical writer/editor Los Alamos National Laboratory
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Telperion Productions http://www.rt66.com/~telp/
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