RE: HYB:Line Breeding:101

Your suggestions are right on the mark, Betty.  One of the things Mel Suiter
told me was "buy the best you can afford" and something to the effect of
"narrow your objectives--work toward a specific goal, one color."  She had
been doing that in four distinct lines over the years she hybridized--oranges,
yellow amoenas, blue bearded whites and reds.

The largest number of seedlings were aimed at orange and had the least
long-term results.  Her ORANGE CRUSH shows up in pedigrees--it's one of the
ancestors of FRESNO FROLIC.
ORANGE FRILLS shows up in some pedigrees as well.

Among the reds, TOMECO was the first red I know of to have spotlessly clean
hafts--no marks!   Schreiners used it, with POST TIME among its descendants if
I remember correctly.  Many of the Schreiner reds descend from Tomeco.

The blue-bearded whites (or near whites) came from Sun Lakes used with Snow
Flurry (LADY BLUE BEARD).  That series of generations and a subsequent one
show up in the ancestry of the blue-bearded pinks from Dave Niswonger as well
as some rather significant things like BREAKERS, VICTORIA FALLS and SONG OF
NORWAY.

The yellow amoena series used Jean Stevens' ground-breaking work outcrossed to
Snow Flurry and other top quality breeders among the whites.  Suiter's yellow
amoenas were years ahead of anyone else--and have vanished into oblivion.  I
don't know why.

She didn't work these four lines concurrently--her focus would be mostly one
at a time, worked heavily.  Several moves kept interrupting her work or we
would have seen even more quality products come from it.

Neil Mogensen  z 7 near Asheville NC

---------------------------------------------------------------------
To sign-off this list, send email to majordomo@hort.net with the
message text UNSUBSCRIBE IRIS
Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index