Pacific Coast Iris - hybridizing
James Waddick (Mon, 04 Feb 2013 12:59:22 PST)
On Feb 4, 2013, at 12:27 PM, Dennis Kramb wrote:
Inspired by some of the oddball success stories of Dr. Thomas Tamberg made
in Germany, I wanted to try crossing PCIs with some of the irises in my
collection (I. prismatica, tridentata, versicolor, virginica, etc.).
I've given up for now. But I'm keeping my eye on Tamberg's work, because
each year more new & interesting things pop up.
Dear Dennis and all,
I too am inspired by Tomas Tamberg's work, but my thoughts were slightly different. All the PCN species have a diploid number of 40. My interest is to hybridize these with another Iris species that has a diploid number of 40, but is easier to grow. Last spring I got 3 PCNs from Wild Ginger Farm and had success crossing the PCN 'Pacific Rim' x Iris lactea and the reverse and I lactea alba x 'Pacific Rim'. I lactea may be the easiest of all wild iris to grow in the Kansa City area.
The resulting seeds looked quite different depending on the pod parent. I sent all those with "Pacific Rim' as the pod parent back to Wild Ginger Farm for them to try growing. I have planted those with I lactea as a pod parent.
Years ago Tomas Tamberg made the same cross and showed that it can be done, but he too had only a single PCN to work with since they are very difficult in Germany. I do hope more people will cross modern multi- generation PCN hybrids with I lactea to get a new generation of easy to grow Iris with at least some of the characters of todays PCNs.
Keep trying Dennis. Best Jim W.