Re: [SpaceAgeRobin] HYB; Questions

Bob, for the most part I am in complete agreement with Chris in his response
(where he typed before "Send."---my typical error of this type is to go hit
the X in the square box in the upper right INSTEAD of the "Send."  That
doesn't work so well, and the material just typed can't be retrieved (no
trash can for this--that is, unless someone else knows something I don't
about Outlook Express....which wouldn't surprise me a bit).  So I either
forget about sending, or I start over and do it all again.

The SAGE project is designed to look at questions of development and
inheritance in SA's.  You might very much enjoy taking part, and produce
some name-worth SA's while doing so.

This is a multi-year, multi-national project in which we are in our very
first stage looking primarily at two questions so far:  dosage, and the
possible presence of an Inhibitor or Suppresor (Normalizer) enzyme system or
set of genes that prevent SA expression.

The reason for suspecting the "normalizer" thing is that the SA condition is
quite clearly a dominant.  Provided one counts the "protohorn" as showing in
ADVANCE GUARD, one of the Austin-used ancestors of most SA's in existence as
being the minimal evidence of SA presence, cross-result counts rule out
recessives as the primary factors in SA inheritance.  The percentages of
SA's is too high, and the OTHER, non SA parent when crossed with some other
non-SA parent that does also throw SA seedlings when crossed with them,
don't produce SA's.  If it were a matter of recessives, some or most would.

Austin noted that odd appendage at the end of the beard (present on many
irises, especially those heavy to Sass-bred varieties in their ancestry).
He took ADVANCE GUARD and a closely related seedling that had the same
"protohorn" and began inbreeding them and came up with the first publicly
offered, registered and named horned, spooned and flounced irises.  There's
reason to believe that SA's had been showing up on occasion for quite a long
time here and there, especially in the Sass seedling fields in Nebraska.
But there are even suggestions in some very old records about diploids in
Europe that suggest SA phenomena were showing up from time to time centuries
ago.

Horned, Spooned and Flounced irises--i.e., any obvious SA--when crossed with
almost all mainline (non-SA) irises produce at least some SA seedlings.
That says "dominant," but there are complicating factors, as Chris mentions,
the percentages of SA seedlings that are obvious are lower than they should
be for a "dominant."

There may be several reasons for that.  1) the SA condition may well be a
combination of genetic factors rather than a single "gene." [highly
probable].  2) there may be a single dose of the possible "Normalizer"
factor or set of factors that prevent SA expression in half or even
three-quarters of the seedlings--perhaps. [almost certain:  evidence for
this is a single fall of a single flower one time in Sutton's growing fields
of a full-blown flounce on one fall, one flower, in their very large growing
fields.  That cannot have occurred if the variety, WILD WINGS of Keith
Keppel's, did not already possess all that is required to be a flounced SA.
It isn't however.  The only explanation that is "Occam's Razor"-proof is
that there is in WILD WINGS a condition that prevents departure from normal
form.  A stray bit of radiation zapped a short piece of DNA essential to
that prevention in the embryonic development stage of the stem tissues that
developed into that fall with a flounce.  "Zaps" from radiation don't
add--they either disrupt "codon" order, changing the gene, or delete it.
Further suggestions of a "Normalizer" condition is that there are some
varieties that NEVER or almost never produce SA offspring in the first
generation.  Apparently WILD WINGS's papa, ROMANTIC EVENING is one such.

Mike Sutton suggested several others from his memory, not his records, as
having few or no SA's in their offspring, DYNAMITE being one.  There are
several others in the SAGE project plan, back several months in the archive
(hort.net) and in the AIS *Bulletin* article, "Getting Serious about ...."
SA genetics, which lays out the plan in its initial stage for SAGE and
mentions several non-producing varieties.]

As to the Dominant status of the SA condition, I suggest you look at the
THORNBIRD pedigree chart on the HIPS website.  You can find it as a
subordinate page either from the Dykes list or from "Quick Fix."  Once you
access the photo of THORNBIRD, you will see a link to "pedigree" or
something like that.  That brings up a .jpg chart that gives the ancestral
tree back quite a few generations.  It is marked both for rebloomer parents
and for SA's.  Beginning from early Austin SA's, every one, or at least
most, of Thornbird's ancestral crosses was an OUTCROSS to a non-SA parent.
That says "dominant" in spades.

The SAGE plan includes four cross types which look for both the "normalizer"
and for dosage effects.  Counts and counts broken down by appendage type in
probably about an eight-division set of a lot of seedlings from each cross
type should give some ammunition and information about what we are dealing
with.

Early SA X SA crosses gave so many distorted or messed up flower formation
that the cross-type was basicly abandoned.  More recently, however, good
SA's have come from multi-generation crosses including both outcrosses to
"normal" irises and to other SA's.  The screwed up flower structure still
does occur from time to time, but it isn't the issue it was once.

As to breeding for quality SA's, I would suggest--get the best SA's you can
find, watching for consistency of appendage as a significant issue, then
cross these with the very best of the best of the mainline non-SA
irises--branching, budcount, color, substance, width of haft (especially)
and such.  YAQUINA BLUE has been very productive of SA's--including flounced
varieties, for instance.  That means it would be worth trying SEA POWER
too--it's a seedling from YB.

Suttons are getting beautifully branched pink SA's with lace and all sorts
of other qualities.  They've followed the idea of crossing out to the best,
and inbreeding also among the best of the seedlings (as in Mike Sutton's
BOTTOMS UP, a blue "dark top" progress step).

Take a look at the Burseen offerings, by the way, and also Christopherson,
Lauer and quite a few other folk  We don't have to do what every one else is
doing.  How about a BLACK SA?  If you run into one of those non-producers
and get no SA's in the offspring, USE those seedlings in breeding.  You will
recover, almost for sure, from at least some of them, the SA condition in
the next generation.  IF it is "normalizer," the gene(s) can be flushed out
by going one, perhaps two more generations.

As you suggested, using the best X the best is the way to go, but it doesn't
have to be SA on both sides of the X.

I hope you find some of this helpful.  Bill Burleson (Oneofcultivars) is no
great distance from you--in NE Mississippi, E of Tupelo, and is involved
both with this Robin and the SAGE project.  He's a wonderful resource.  If
you haven't already made his acquaintance, you would find it profitable to
do so, I believe.

Neil Mogensen  z 7  Reg 4  western NC mountains

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