new direction. To breed a “one-day” or a “two-day”
flower, you will have to get good, dry pollen from
another source. Why? The pollen sacs on the “one”
and “two-day” buds will not have opened yet. So,
the pollen won’t be accessible, dry and therefore
suitable for use. However, this phenomenon led to
the accidental hybridizing advancement.
The tiny little bugs that scurry around your iris
blooms and rabidly eat all of your pollen are called
thrips. They look like brown or green sewing thread
that has been cut into very short segments. Most
people don’t pay any attention to them. These
small, winged insects are basically harmless unless
you happen to be a micro-photographer or an iris
hybridizer.
I’ve never actually timed them, but from the
time that the twin pollen sacs on the anther open
naturally, the thrips seem to be able to eat 95%
of pollen in only an hour or so. They will actually
camp on your flower a little before the pollen sacs
actually open, ready to pounce the instant that the
sacs open. No doubt, this is one of primary reasons
why hybridizers prefer to breed on the morning of
a “today” flower. If you wait until noon, you may be
hard pressed to find any pollen to use.
In 2017, while re-examining some of my “one-day”
and “two-day” crosses, I noticed something that
was out of the ordinary. Thrips were nearly absent
and the anthers were still brimming with pollen ….
and they stayed that way for a long period of time.
The thrips had somehow failed to discover the rich
source of pollen and were AWOL.
Evidently, the thrips “key in” to a fully open
flower; a flower with all of its standards and falls
still intact. The buds that had been stripped of
their standards and falls escaped the attention of
the thrips. It’s not every day that you can outsmart
a bug! Consequently and accidentally, the stripped
buds then became a reliable and abundant source
of good dry pollen throughout the entire day and
the entire 2017 breeding season.
With the two, new hybridizing advancements
that I’ve just outlined, I’m quite certain that the
world of iris will now advance even further. The
increasing number of pods that I am now getting
say so. So you can now be just like me and do some
of your hybridizing even after you get up from your
afternoon nap!
d
This flower had been previously bred as a “two-day” flower per
the VVE designation on the breeding tag. Yet the pollen is still
in place and hasn’t been eaten by thrips. If you look closely, you
can see a single thrips on the style arm.
Here is a close-up of the same anther from above picture.
It shows just how abundant the pollen still is!
The author and his wife, Diane, owners of Mariposa Iris.
18 AIS Bulletin Winter 2018