Re: AIS: predicting award winners...

I agree with the seasonality comment, not because it's inappropriate to
discuss it at this time of year (at least in the northern hemisphere),
just that more people will have time & interest in participating in the
winter when they are suffering from cabin fever.

Now, it's mostly just those of us in peak ragweed, mold, heatstroke, &
faced with more work than we want or can do at the moment....

This morning, while avoiding more strenuous labors outdoors, I started
going through the list of AM winners I had compiled last year for the
survey of Region 7/Baja growers and added date of introduction, year of
winning HM & Wister,  including runners up.  I'm not done yet, but
here's what I see so far.

Assuming that the irises that really caught judge's eyes were winning
HMs two years after registry and winning AMs two years after that, I
came up with the following (date of reg):

ANVIL OF DARKNESS (1998)
BLACK TIE AFFAIR (1993)
BOYSENBERRY BUTTERCUP (1997) not positive, but I think I killed this one

CELEBRATION SONG (1993) super here
CELTIC HARP (1998)
CLASSIC LOOK (1992) new here
COLOR ME BLUE (1997)  does ok, stunted
CRANBERRY DELIGHT (1995)
DEEP DARK SECRET (1998)
DIABOLIQUE (1997) not very good here
GOOD VIBRATIONS (1997)
GYPSY ROMANCE (1994) dies
HELLO DARKNESS (1992) struggles
HOTDOGS AND MUSTARD (1995)
JURASSIC PARK (1995) new here
KENTUCKY WOMAN (1997)
MARIPOSA AUTUMN (1999) does well
MERLOT (1999) very new here (i.e, not planted yet)
PENNY LANE (1999) suffers severe freeze damage, but lives
QUEEN OF ANGELS (1995)
STARSHIP ENTERPRISE (1999)
SWINGTOWN (1996) super here, but a very slow increaser
WORLD PREMIER (1998)
YAQUINA BLUE (1992) fairly new here, great this year, very slow increase

LOTS of Schriener intros in that list, which makes me think that the
rate of moving from HM to AM alone might be a more useful index (for me)
of how impressed the judges were, since I suspect Schreiner irises get
more early distribution and exposure to judges than irises from most
other hybridizers, so can pick up HMs sooner after intro.

However, this list turned up a couple of surprises - one is STARSHIP
ENTERPRISE.  I thought it was reported even in Schrieners' catalog as a
very poor grower??

The other is CELTIC HARP, which I never heard of before and isn't in the
three 'big' catalogs I have - Schreiners, Superstition, or MidAmerica.
It has BARCELONA in its pedigree, so is one I would really like to try.

Future Wisters that are approaching affordable prices?  Maybe
ANVIL OF DARKNESS (1998)
CELTIC HARP (1998)
COLOR ME BLUE (1997)  does ok, stunted
DEEP DARK SECRET (1998)
KENTUCKY WOMAN (1997)
MARIPOSA AUTUMN (1999) does fairly well, stunted
MERLOT (1999) very new here (i.e, not planted yet)
PENNY LANE (1999) suffers severe freeze damage, but lives
STARSHIP ENTERPRISE (1999)

Now if only I could guess among those that were registered in this
century...
-
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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