[SpaceAgeRobin] Re:HYB:high performance at home only [was: CAT:WIDDERSHINS etc.]

From a number of comments made about Hamblen and Opal Brown irises, Bill's remark about the current introductions doing well at home and not so well elsewhere certainly connects.
 
Melba Hamblen got her first major jump forward with the Great Lakes and Helen McGregor crosses with Hall pinks, then back crossing to the Hall line, all from eastern and upper midwest origin.  Those products, such as Valimar and several others, led to great strides forward for her and for a lot of other folk.
 
Then she incorporated some of Tell Muhlestein's pink work (closely related to Hall's) plus Whole Cloth (Indiana), and went forward, inbreeding mostly.  Eventually those superior performers didn't yield such superior performance any more for folks outside Utah and similar climes in Idaho and such.
 
Similarly, the t-beardeds from Opal Brown began with outcrosses much like Hamblens, added in Melodrama, a kissin' cousin to Whole Cloth, with a little Dreamcastle thrown in, then went forward, largely inbreeding.  The same thing happened.  That marvelous climate around Walla Walla, WA and Milton-Freewater, OR just a few miles south is an extension of the coastal "Iris Heaven."  Eventually, so I am told, O. Brown t-beardeds didn't perform so well away from home.
 
The comments about difficult performance of the Luminatas from the Ghio/Keppel (I combine them for cause--read the pedigrees) away from their home climate is the same story.  What started out, many generations past, as a mix of Nebraska, So. California, Nashville, TN-bred irises and other root ancestors, the inbred line began to do well, even fabulously well, at home, and not so well elsewhere.
 
Why?  For the very reason to which Bill Burleson refers--that which is adapted to Tupelo over five generations begins gradually (in most cases) to lose its ability to shine in Tacoma or Tonopah.
 
The exceptions to this--Schreiner lines.  Why?  The blacks, the blues/whites, plicatas and the orchids are pretty much inbred lines as much as the Luminatas and O. Brown-Hamblen t-beardeds.  Or are they?
 
Oddly, the Schreiner breeding program has a curious mix back and forth among those lines.  Rococco is stirred into the blues and blacks.  Dr. Wanlass, which is an upper midwestern two-generation outcross combination of Hall (Chantilly) and other non-westcoast irises, gets stirred into blacks and blues--and so on.
 
Then comes the astonishing SILVERADO--half white-non-west coast breeding (Carriage Trade), the other half a mix of Schreiner orchid, black and more.  Two generations of strong outcrosses in quick succession--and look at the number of registrations from it--all over the world.
 
This may tell us something about how to approach the SpaceAge program--watch out for extended inbreeding without outcrosses to SA's from other areas.
 
Fortunately we have Texas well represented with both Burseen and Christopherson pumping out top notch products, Lauer, Superstition (Tasco) and others in California, the late Lloyd Zurbrigg from eastern NC (Raleigh-Durham area) and very much alive Don Spoon in eastern Virginia and several others scattered all over the country--and judging from the list on this Robin, a scattering of interested and active breeders all over the world in about every different climate one could ask for.
 
If we keep exchanging materials, cross-referencing performance and keeping in touch with how our treasured babies perform away from home we may avoid the Tupelo-trap to which Bill refers (forgive me for that too easy name tripping of the tongue, Bill).
 
Just thinkin'
Neil Mogensen  z 7 in or near Linda Mann's "Vale of Despair" in western NC

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