Re: Re: HYB: Marking "keepers"

I plant my seeds in pots with the seeds touching each other. Ben Hager once told me I'd get better germanation when seeds were touching each other. When seedlings are about 6 inches tall, I dump them out and only save the strongest 25 percent of the crop. Weaker plants take too long to do anything with them. Then I plant them 9 inches apart in two rows 12 inches apart, staggering the two rows. By the time I have given them a first evaluation and am ready to transplant to the "re-select" garden, they are ready to make a clump. You have been looking at my "re-select" bed.

Jim



----- Original Message ----- From: "Linda Mann" <lmann@volfirst.net>
To: "iris- talk" <iris@hort.net>
Sent: Friday, October 29, 2004 10:55 AM
Subject: [iris] Re: HYB: Marking "keepers"


Thanks for all the tips and thoughts on this subject.

For most of my crosses, there are few enough seedlings from any one
cross that make it to bloom size, that it's not too much trouble to
number the plants individually, the way Jim does.  Then I can easily add
another window blind tag that tells me it reblooms, or add 'reb' to the
number tag it already has.  So far, only one cross has given me more
than about a dozen surviving seedlings.

Jim, you mentioned seedling 'clumps', which I've seen in your garden.
Do you line out individual baby seedlings with such wide spacing or do
you grow them for a while in pots or in groups, then line them out later
to bloom?

When 've been really packing my seedling close together to save space.
I think Lloyd Z posted something years ago about planting babies at
least 6 inches apart?

As for colored tags, I'm using those to help me find the new purchases &
seedlings out amongst the companion plants and rowdy iris neighbors, so
I can find things without having to carry the notebook/map around with
me.

Seedlings get green tags, 2004 new plants are white tags spray painted
fire-engine red, 2003 are beige, next will be painted blue, then it will
be time to evaluate and discard poor do-ers and cycle thru the colors
again, substituting painted red speckles over blue for the beige (too
close to white name tags).

--
Linda Mann east Tennessee USA zone 7/8
East Tennessee Iris Society <http://www.korrnet.org/etis>
American Iris Society web site <http://www.irises.org>
talk archives: <http://www.hort.net/lists/iris-talk/>
photos archives: <http://www.hort.net/lists/iris-photos/>
online R&I <http://www.irisregister.com>

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