Still reading the hybridizing section and now pretty determined. The Winterberry reading is right up my alley. Economics, marketing, genetics, and motivation are odd to find together in a reading. Love it!! This reading is true Iris for the Dummies and well detailed and explained.

They are good folks from everything I have read about them.

Question - If an Iris has been around for a good bit and it has not been used in crossing for children, does that mean it could be sterile?

Blessings

possibly, or grown by people not interested in hybridizing
.

Or used in hybridizing but with no seedlings worthy of registration and naming. Many of the noids that people try to ID here could be unnamed seedlings from such crosses.

yadah_tyger said:Question - If an Iris has been around for a good bit and it has not been used in crossing for children, does that mean it could be sterile?

I hope people aren't looked at that way.

Now that was funny!!!!

Blessings

Looking thru the clearance racks I found this for $3 a 4lb bag. I bought three because I can never find 6-10-10 anywhere else and it's all they had left. Does brand matter??

I have personally never seen any difference on brands

Rob, I know you mentioned Hortzons where you get your fertilizer in one of your posts. Do you know what brand it was and what the NPK ratio it is?

@underthesun

I would use it but I usually look for something with trace elements.......

Looking through the clearance racks where, Gabe?

The fertilizer I get at Horizons is 6-20-10. I dump the bag(s) into an empty plastic cat litter container so I don't have the original bag(s) anymore. According to their website, it says it's made by Turfgro. http://www.horizononline.com/p...

I'll be getting another bag before Spring, so I'll list the name if it's different.

Wally world

OK -- thanks Gabe.

Before I head to MI I decided to do a few test pots. Yes it's early January, yes I'm bored. I decided to try my 6-10-10 mix, my 2-14-0(bonemeal), baked/dried banana skin grinds and coffee grinds mixes on a few noIDS this morning.

My test are:
6-10-10 in one pot w/ 2.5 teaspoons
Bone meal in one pot with 2.5 teaspoons
8-24-10 mix in one pot 3 only because the pot is bigger (3gal)
Coffee grinds one pot 5 teaspoons
Banana grinds one pot 3 teaspoons
Banana coffee grind mix 4 teaspoons

Variable Pros: all the same noID for testing, almost all rhizomes the same size with new babies. Most likely these are historic noIDs and probably will stand up an to anything thrown their way.

Variables cons: Wrong season for this outdoor test, Temps to drop to low 20's this weekend, Heavy rains headed in may just flush the fertilizers too fast.

Either I receive good growth, better growth, bigger increases, or I'm the "dummy", but I always wanted to see the variables. I guess in a few weeks we'll see. I have several hundred guinea pigs to test on.

Rule of thumb in my zone is not to fertilize until mid February or six weeks before anticipated bloom. I usually give my irises love (fertilizer) on Valentine's Day if it is not icy. Theory being if I fed them now new growth would get frozen and they would expend a lot of energy on false starts. I am interested to see the results of your tests Gabe. Also it would help if you kept dates of hard freezes and seeing new growth starts. This old dog CAN learn new tricks. smiles

The named goodies won't be subjected to guinea pig testing. I'm only using 8 different pots with a total of about 18 plants in all. There will definitely be some hard freezes I'm sure. I try the similar around the 6 week prior as well. Notes on paper and new markings on the plant markers for some ID.

A test I WILL NOT try is alfalfa pellets. Too many rabbits and too early to mix into soil and ruin established rhizomes