HYB: CULT: reselect seedlings & trash

I have a beautiful, tough, reliable rejected seedling from a local
hybridizer, given away during one of our plant sales before we were told
we 'shouldn't' do that (official word from AIS).  He was not donating
'junk' iris seedlings, only ones that didn't meet his hybridizing needs
or match his standards for introduction.

It's not in a color class where it would likely be marketable, given how
many of these there are already on the market (ruffled, mid to dark blue
lavender) plus it doesn't have horizontal falls, which he prefers, hence
he 'trashed' it.  Of his seedlings I've tried (some of which this
hybridizer has introduced), this one out performs all of them here in my
more than slightly difficult growing conditions.  What's more, it
outperforms the majority of named varieties I've tried.  He is
reconsidering it and I'm trying to hybridize with it.

So, I have mixed feelings about 'trashed' seedlings, even within a
'local' area (I'm about 60 miles away).  Hybridizing is enough work
without trying to decide whether or not something you reject is worth
mailing off somewhere different just to see if it grows better somewhere
else.  On the other hand, think of all the tough irises that could
improve 'growability' of TBs in difficult areas that (maybe?) are being
shredded.

I think it is great that there will always be a 'black market' trade in
non-introduced TBs, even tho it also makes me nuts when trying to figure
out what they are when they wind up at my house.  And it's partly why I
continue to buy 'Mart irises - I'm always hoping to get a start of
something that will grow well here but was rejected by a bigtime
commercial iris hybridizer as not quite good enough for their
objectives.  I imagine huge rows of healthy growing TBs, all just alike,
resulting from a cross that was an attempt to get at a combination of
recessive genes.  The healthy seedlings would be 'trash'.

PS the local hybridizer continues to give me some of his better rejected
seedlings, but they are no longer part of our club rhizome sales.

Linda Mann east Tennessee USA zone 7/8


 

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