Re: HYB:Trail Gardens:Damage control!

I feel that at least one person in this group must have the wrong idea about the actuall evaluation and use of an "official form "on plants submitted to a Trial Garden.  Some of us seem to making this MUCH more complicated that is it should be.  Maybe because they don't understand what is actually being evaluated.

First and foremost the plants being tested are not untrialed seedlings which have not bloomed or proven their characteritics to the originator/hybridizer.

The seedlings being submitted would normally have been grown in  hybrtidizer's garden for (imagining) at least THREE YEARS and have been observed and culled from others that were discarded from a batch of siblings.  

For example I regularly plant anywhere from 500 - 1000 seedlings a year from any combination of various crosses in my plot.  One year I planted 1200 just because I had more seeds that survided and grew from the germination process.  Over the next two years  after some have died and in making general visual observations if all have bloomed I select some, if any, from each cross for further evaluation.  NO ACTUAL DATA HAS BEEN TAKEN by me or anyone else at this point.  I usually have given each one some sort of code to distinguish it in records (such as a planting chart) or maybe even some crosses I have done with it.

These that have been selected are then observed the next year, and probably the year after that as well, to look for consistency and how the clump behaves as a mature plant.  If a particular plant impresses me compared to the others I will consider it for registration.

This is where the Hybridizer Trial Gardens would come in.  I , the Hybridizer, would select a garden for the proposed contact list and ASK if I may be allowed to send them a few rhizomes for them to evaluate.  It is also up to the Evaluator to accept or deny the taking on of the task.   Once the agreement  is made between the two parties is made, then and only then are rhizomes shipped with the appropriate identification (and maybe the evaluation forms depending how all this is set up.

Make this note:  
the Hybridizer needs to be much more selective in making decisions about what to keep and further more send to a Trial Garden.  One would not be sending 30 seedlings that they think are their best because they are the prettiest flowers.... or always has 12 buds.... or a new color pattern.  However, if a hybridizer, such as Linda were to be looking for something in particular,  such as Mediterranean climate tolerance, she may actually want to 30 or 50 plants of her own hybridizing efforts that she feels tolerant.  She may want someone elses experiences in a similar climate to obesrve and take data for their characterisitcs.  Then she would evaluate them a few years later based on those, as well as her own, observations.  Once again Linda would have to set up this experiment with the Test Garden of interest to her and they would have to agree.  In other words a Test Garden should not be receiving hundreds or thousands of unnamed or seedling #'d rhizomes from who knows where to plant and evaluate.  They would only agree to take on on what they realistically feel appropriate to handle based on garden space and time allowed to do the job.  I myself might only take on 20 plants for evaluation.  A Hybridizer may also be interested in someone germinating seed for them in the Test Garden climate because they know the cross would not grow well in the climate they came from.  Once again, an agreement between the two parties and what is to be evaluated or culled from what survives, form or no form.  

To sum up,....an Evaluator is only filling out forms (or keeping track in some fashion) with some basic observations and some measurements predetermined by the Hybridizer for plants that the Evaluator had agreed to take on, be it 5 plants or 100.

If whatever number of plants is to much of a commitment for your taste, then so be it.  Don't commit to anything and let someone else do the work.  Sorry and yes that is blunt and to the point.  However, considering the resistance I'm seeing in some of this group from reading these emails I feel it might be warranted.  We also don't know yet who or how many are willing to do the work necessary because the concept has not been made "public", say through the Bulletin of the AIS.  We are simply trying to hash out the detalis.  I would not expect that the general Iris-loving growers would be so resistant, confining or discouraging as a few of the responses I have seen on here.

Paul Archer

Raleigh, NC  Zone 7

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