LizinElizabeth said:I completely missed the crossing Lutea with Itoh and the pics as well as the thing about fertilizing/botrytis? Can you please elaborate on that, LG? I missed the first few minutes after the break and had a few times that Jeff was looking for something that I had to help him with, caught the cast majority but missed that completely! I didn't take notes, never even occurred to me, duh! What was the variety that Harvey said always produced seedlings that were prone to botrytis?
I've never seen any of Harvey's lectures either, thought the conversation back and forth where they were basically prompting each other was wonderful!
Liz, my interpretation and recollection of what Harvey was saying is that the first thing that should be looked at when tackling botrytis is soil ecology. He said that when your soil is healthy/fertile and in balance botrytis is very rarely an issue. He mentioned the importance of potassium as something that helps prevent botrytis as it ferries nutrients around and therefore helps increase their use by the plant. Harvey also touched on how their are several different types of botrytis and how the one that infects the crown is different from the foliar botrytis. When applying a copper based fungicide it should be done before you start seeing the symptoms in areas that you know you've had trouble prior as it inhibits the opening of the spores - any later and it's not going to be as effective just because of the mechanism of inhibition.
Mary Brand was the mother plant that always produced seedlings prone to botrytis and were subsequently all culled.
I *think* the whole Lutea and Itoh thing was a thought exercise that demonstrated that people should be adventurous with their crosses and not only do things by the book - those who do may have some failures or less seed but will be the ones who come away with the most interesting plants. Or it may have been when the panel was mentioning that introducing some of the species plants back into the crosses of today may widen the gene pool of modern hybrids and produce some more interesting plants now and in the long run. Please correct me if I've misspoken, I'm not always the greatest listener!
I agree, Harvey was incredibly knowledgeable and so well spoken. It was a joy to hear him talk alongside Nate and Don. It's like he was meant to be doing these kind of sessions.
Mieko2 said:I did note that a couple of them did say that they didn't worry about the bees pollinating their peonies because they didn't see them. Are bees not common up in the cold areas? I've been seeing honey bees in my area since the end of January.
I thought this was quite interesting too. I'm growing in a cold area and right in the suburbs I see quite a few bees every year. If I was doing a ton of hybridizing it would certainly be an issue if I didn't cover the crosses.
