Re: Making Crosses

I do things slightly differently than Sharon, but it's the same general idea.
I use a small cardboard box as my hybridizing kit.


1.  I "harvest" pollen from prospective parents aa they bloom, since they may
    not be blooming when I want to use them.  I also use tweezers to pluck the
    anthers and put them in a glassine envelope (like people use to hold
    stamps).  I write the name of the iris on the envelope in pencil.  It's
    important to keep it in something that will breathe so that moisture is
    not trapped with the pollen.  I've been told that moisture activates pollen
    and once activated it has a short lifetime.
 
2.  I use a plain flat toothpick.  I think colored toothpicks are a good idea,
    but be sure to get multiple colors, since there are colored pollens!  I
    place the toothpick in my mouth to get some saliva on it so that the pollen
    will stick to it.  I try to fertilize the stigmatic lip relatively soon
    after opening.  The lip looks kind of "moist" then and as it ages, it seems
    to dry out.  I've discovered that a cross is much less likely to "take" the
    longer after a flower opens that it is made.

3.  I record the cross on a stringed tag with a pencil and fasten the tag to
    the stalk below the flower that I used.  Since I may use later blooms for
    different crosses, I make sure that the tag is attached to the correct
    bloom.  I use pencil since it does not fade in the (really bright New
    Mexico) sun.

4.  I also keep a separate log of crosses that I make in case a tag is lost
    or becomes illegible.  This has actually saved me once or twice -- I've
    never lost a tag, but I have had a couple become illegible from water
    damage..

Making crosses is fun.  Waiting the two years (at least) until they bloom is
hard, but some of my first crosses should be blooming soon.  (All my first year
crosses were SDBs.)  My second year crosses are starting to sprout.  (I did
a greater variety of second year crosses, including some very wide crosses.)

Suzanne Sluizer
sluizer@cs.unm.edu
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