Reblooming Iris Breeding in Zone 6 Kentucky-Cross # 2527

In this post we're dealing with dominant (selfs) and recessive (plicatas) traits and the resulting seedlings. There are many dominant traits and many recessive traits, but this will only deal with selfs and plicatas.  Lots of fun and a few surprises.

'All Revved Up' is one of my plicata rebloomers. It is a child of 'Radiant Bliss' and contains some genetic material for color from the west coast, mainly 'Gigolo.'  It has bloomed in all months from May through October.  'Lunar Whitewash' is a white reblooming iris introduced by Sterling Innerst. It is a good cycle rebloomer. Both are rebloomers and both have good form.  'All Revved Up' has good branching and bud count, but is a little short, while 'Lunar Whitewash' has great form, but really lousy branching.  The goal was a really good meeting of the genes and interesting colors.  

'All Revved Up' with 'Lunar Whitewash' behind. 

Pod Parent 'All Revved Up' (Wilkerson 2007)

Pollen Parent 'Lunar Whitewash' (Innerst 2000)

If you cross two plicatas you will get mostly, and usually all, plicata seedlings. With a decreasing number of plicata genes within the solid or self, you will get a varying number of plicata seedlings, but most will be selfs, bicolors and variegatas. If there are no plicata genes in the self, as appears to be the case with 'Lunar Whitewash,' there will be no plicatas, but there will be haft lines.  

2527-01 (Wilkerson Seedling)  

2527-02 (Wilkerson seedling)

The seedlings have varied with most being the same or near the combination of 2527-02. This is my favorite of the purples since it produces a large number of stalks and blooms.  The white one, 2527-01, is a bit taller with really consistent spring stalks, and probably my favorite of all the results.  Although any color is possible with this combination, the yellow, 2527-06yellow, came as the biggest surprise to me.   Lack of rebloom was the most shocking, but they were in a bad bed.  

2527-06yellow (Wilkerson seedling)  

In earlier years, plicatas provided a large part of the base for rebloom.  It should be no surprise when haft lines show up with plicatas x self crosses.  It's been explained to me that this is not a "plicata effect," as I'd thought, but simply that the lines are not considered a default in the plicatas so they were not bred out of them, therefore, they show up in the children.   

It's not uncommon for my gardening to overreach my ability to keep all of the beds clean of weeds, since I prefer breeding to weed pulling.  These pictures are taken to document flowers for my breeding program, and I never thought they would be viewed by the public.  Please forgive the weeds.