RE: HYB:Pod Parent:101

Betty and all,

I make reciprocal crosses on my planned major crosses whenever I can.  What I
have seen of bloom (small numbers--frost and wind, hail got a bunch of this
year's crop) in recent seedlings even from a fairly wide crosses didn't show
any significant differences.

Cytoplasmic inheritance--a trait that come from DNA out in the cell instead of
from the chromosomes in the nucleus--does happen.  These traits come only from
the mother.

I believe I read that the majority of good OGB stock nowdays is descended from
non-C. G. White hybrids that used Regelia mothers in the basic aril ancestry
rather than the oncocyclus, then the aril side of the ancestry continues on
the mother's side in the outcrosses to TB's.  Many of these modern ones have
CGW's in the parentages, but on the pollen side in subsequent generations.
I'm talking about something with which I have no personal experience.  I found
what I read fascinating.  There are folks in Iris-talk that could speak
authoritatively to this matter, though.  I believe what I read came from
Sharon McAllister.

Someone asked if pod-sterile varieties (or at least ones that rarely if ever
set pods) had defective-looking ovaries and ovules.  I had been curious about
this too in my younger days and sliced thin sections on a lot of ovaries from
such varieties.  They all looked -- to the unaided eye -- completely normal.
They were full of fat, healthy-looking ovules.  It appeared to me the problem
must be elsewhere.

I find SKYWALKER to be a very reluctant seed-setter.  A couple years ago I
moistened my fingertip with saliva, touched the stigmatic lips (an idea that
came from a post on Iris-talk)  then used the most potent pollen I had
available--ROMANTIC EVENING.  I bloomed some fun seedlings from that cross
this spring.  I'd like to get some of the silk-smooth texture and ruffling of
Skywalker into my seedlings and was very glad to see the progeny show some
quality.

ROMANTIC EVENING is another that is ultra-fertile on the daddy side, but has
yet to set a pod for me.  I've not tried moistening the stigmatic lip, and
probably won't.  I'm two generations past using it now.  My space is too
limited to do anything that does not work directly toward my objectives.

Neil Mogensen  z 7 western NC where we had our first frost this morning--30.5
on a sheltered thermometer near the house just as the sun was coming up.
First frost in mid-November?  What a year!

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