Re: [SpaceAgeRobin] HYB; Questions


"Neil A Mogensen" <neilm@charter.net> wrote:

>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
>
>SpaceAgeRobin Home Page at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SpaceAgeRobin/
>The Robin's archive is at  http://www.hort.net/lists/spaceagerobin/
>
>

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