Re: Jennifer Rebecca

Just keep in mind that persistance pays off.  Significant improvement in the Iris and other crops has been achieved through such means.  Perhaps quite a bit more luck involved, but you don't know that luck has struck until much later usually.  All that is needed is two good plants with fairly good qualities that are fertile at least with each other, or one that is fertile with a number of plants for line breeding.  The infertility could possibly be bred out because it may be due to chromosome abnomalities or a gene incompatability with other varieties.  

I have no expectation the the Frank Adams seedlings are going to produce anything of modern form or quality for at least two more generations.  However the two Frank Adams seedlings I do have a have good vigor and plant qualities similar to Frank Adams aside from the flower form. 


Paul Archer
Raleigh, NC  Zone 7



-----Original Message-----
From: jgcrump <jgcrump@erols.com>
Sent: Oct 23, 2005 8:14 PM
To: iris@hort.net
Subject: Re: [iris] Jennifer Rebecca

Paul  --  Your experience with setting any seeds at all with JENNIFER
REBECCA pollen gives me some hope.  I had concluded that JR was not pollen
fertile, based on countless attempts over three seasons in the mid-1990s.
Only because I had had the initial success have I kept on trying to get it
to set seed.  Actually, on re-checking my records, I see that I had 4 pods,
rather than 3, in that first year.  They were by Summer Olympics, Triple
Whammy, 988-1 (a Clarence Mahan seedling) and 93U5 (a seedling of mine
involving Schiaparelli).  They produced 4, 5, 9 and 4 seeds, respectively.
Germination was 2 of 4, 3 of 5, 1 of 9 and 0 of 4 (which is why I forgot
this last one).  I was never able to duplicate those crosses, though.  I had
an incipient pod on JR this year by Brave New World (I'll try anything), but
it did not mature.  --  Griff


----- Original Message -----
From: <pharcher@mindspring.com>
To: <iris@HORT.NET>
Sent: Sunday, October 23, 2005 9:23 PM
Subject: Re: [iris] Jennifer Rebecca


> Just a note of interest on the comment below.  I had heard Jennifer
Rebecca is somewhat pollen fertile so I have tried some over the years.
This year my first successful pod contained 3 seeds on one of my RED Frank
Adams seedlings X Jennifer Rebecca.  Alas, only three seeds so I plan to
make a whole lot more on this Frank Adams seedling next year with Jennifer
Rebecca.
>
> Let's just hope they most germinate when I do get them.
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: jgcrump <jgcrump@erols.com>
> Sent: Oct 23, 2005 3:00 PM
> To: iris@hort.net
> Subject: [iris] Zurbrigg irises
>
>
> Turning to the others of Lloyd's irises that I, particularly, am concerned
> with, I would list, first, JENNIFER REBECCA (Grace Thomas X Vanity),
> Avonbank,1984.   Don Spoon often used to say that JR was the most
beautiful
> iris he'd ever seen, rebloomer or no.  It has exceptional beauty and
grace, in
> my opinion, and I have been working doggedly for 10 years to try to get it
to
> set seed again.  The first year that it bloomed for me, 1994, I got pods
on it
> from three different pollen parents.  The hellacious wet, icy winter of
1995
> wiped out whole rows of my seedlings, including all of the JR seedlings.
I've
> never been able to get another pod, but will continue trying, because its
> color, form and branching are just as good now, in my opinion, as they
were a
> decade ago.
>
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