SEED: Blue beard

David Niswonger in Missouri has worked for many generations crossing
blue-bearded TB whites with pinks to get a blue-bearded pink.  The TBs he
started with included Melvina Suiter's line of LADY BLUE BEARD and SWEET
ALICE LEE.  Chet Thompkins' COURTESY is also involved.

Two of the several products after many generations have been DIRECT FLIGHT
which has a slight blue influence in the outermost part of the beards and a
richly pink effect as a garden subject due to a bluish white ground color in
the anthocyanin pigment combined with a good, solid Lycopene in the
carotenoids.

Niswonger recommends as a better breeder from this line the variety PINK
BLUE GENES.

Keith Keppel has also crossed blues and pinks in the past, the more recent
series accenting the "dark top" type, but which just incidentally also
happens to have the genetics for blue beards.  FOGBOUND is a white with a
white beard becoming pink in the inner part of the beard, with a pink blush
in the hafts.  There are many FOGBOUND descents on the market now, mostly in
the ''dark top" breeding type, but the line, which also includes Joe Ghio's
near white with pink blush in the standards, TREASURED, a beautiful iris
with heavy substance and superlative form, includes many iris varieties from
numerous breeders.

Some seedlings I've raised from Joe Ghio's ROMANTIC EVENING have vivid blue
beards, some expressed simultaneously with tangerine beards, on rich
cranberry and bishop's violet petal colors.  I've not crossed these with any
of the blue-bearded pink attempts, but have raised seedlings from them with
FOGBOUND, obtaining superlative bloom quality and vivid blue beards.  None
of the better ones have been with the anthocyanin inhibitor, however.

ROMANTIC EVENING does have some of the blue expressed in its beard, and has
blue-bearded irises many times over in its ancestry.  Its descendents are
legion, many of which you should have available, as well as others I've
mentioned, within your own marketing field in Europe.

Another pink with blue in the beard is the French origination from Cayeaux,
AMBROISIE.  It and other Cayeaux pinks carry the TB blue beard
characteristic and could prove useful to you.

All of those mentioned above with blue beard genetics inherit their trait
apparently from the remote presence of *I. aphylla* in their ancestry.

The genetics of the blue beard from *pumila* appears to be a different
genetic trait, and one that would be interesting to get into the TB
mainstream.  There are SDB's and IB's in existence with yellow or cream
*pumila* fall spot and blue or near blue beards.

The pink SDB from Barry Blyth, CHANTED, has some blue in its beard and is a
rich pink.  There are a number of IB's with CHANTED ancestry.  A search of
the online database of the AIS for CHANTED offspring might be useful.

Neil Mogensen  z 7  Reg 4  western NC mountains.

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