Re: Re: RE: Sibling Crosses

Thanks, Neil

You have done a fine job of writing what I was going to attempt.

Jim Ennenga
----- Original Message ----- From: "Neil A Mogensen" <neilm@charter.net>
To: "Iris-talk" <iris@hort.net>
Sent: Sunday, October 24, 2004 12:45 PM
Subject: [iris] Re: RE: Sibling Crosses


Betty, despite any or all advice you might get, may I suggest--trust your
instincts.

As to sibling crosses and close breeding, you might find chasing the pedigree
of OLYMPIAD back several generations. It is an education in the possible--if
you start with the right parents.

Joe Ghio has a pattern of often crossing half-sibs. Chasing a pedigree chart
of one of his can be a challenge, as the unnamed parts of the pedigrees can be
difficult to follow--just which parentheses belong with which others? The
study, however, is an education.

Barry Blyth crosses unlike to unlike. Yet his advanced generation material
rests on a relatively small foundation with occasional outcrosses to Keppel or
Ghio "bests." He mentions in a *Tall Talk* article (Spring '04 I think) that
some of his recent things may contain SUNSET SNOWS as many as 100 times.

SUNSET SNOWS apparently rests, itself, on a narrow foundation of PINNACLE and
its close relatives crossed with pinks, then inbred generation after
generation.

Keith Keppel makes fairly wide crosses then works the lineage--he describes
them as "cousin" crosses. A study of the pedigrees of his pink-ground
plicatas or the emerging black plicatas is an education in strategy. The same
root parents often show up several times in a lineage.

Schreiners blacks, blues and orchids as lines have often been inter-crossed in
recent generations, but for a long time each of those were fairly close-bred
lines. Some of the Dykes Medal pedigree charts on the HIPS website that Mike
Lowe has generated are very helpful in understanding strategies followed,
especially by highly successful breeders like the Shreiner family have been.

Some of the rest of us tend to cross the best with the best--but doing so
often does not result in the "best" seedlings.

Like breeds like? That's an old saw that is sometimes true, sometimes not.
But I can say from experience that if you take something with a serious fault
to work from, you will sure make a lot of compost. Doggy traits are
astoundingly persistent.

Neil Mogensen z 7 western NC mountains

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