Our Own GMO Pacific Coast Iris Activity…Sort of…
Our Own GMO Pacific Coast Iris Activity…Sort of…
Bob Sussman 3/8/2018
Every year we “cross” various pacific coast irises that we hope we produce more beautiful and better growing offspring. Same as people have been doing with plants and animals for thousands of years, old school GMO. The results generally take 2 years, sometimes 3 to see the first flower and get an idea as to the growth habit. Additionally, also produces several siblings and their flowers and habit can be similar or run a wide spectrum. Generally, the more diverse the genetics of the parents the wider will be the spectrum of characteristics of the offspring.
In 2016, we seriously ramped up our the number of crosses and we will see the results this year very shortly. One of the first results looks to be “opening” shortly.
You can see the new bud pushing up through the middle and should flower in about 2 weeks.
Here are the proud parents- which are some of our previous hybrids.
We’ve named this red iris I. ‘Dr. Richie’ and some of them in 5-gallon pots are currently for sale.
Another one of our hybrids I. ‘Traditional Profile’- similar to I. douglasiana but much, much bigger scale and better color too. Some of these are for sale in 5-gallon containers too.
What the product of these two will look like is anyone’s guess but there are some similar characteristics between the two of them that will likely show up in the 25 or so siblings. You can bet I’ll be sitting there will my digital camera cataloging almost every flower from every siblings.
In the past I wasn’t nearly so organized and lost lots of irises and information but just to make the point about the wide spectrum of siblings take a look at the following….both with the same parents and all siblings to I. ‘Dr. Richie’.
Our new hybrids should start to flower in about 2 weeks and be in full display in about a month. We’ll finally see the results from our crosses 2 years ago and growing them out for 2 years. I can’t wait for the shall we say grand opening, (I confess to being a little nutz) and I’ll share it all!
