Zaiger was working with different cherry tree cultivars from Spain. It's quite possible—I would even say very likely—they could have used Cristobalina to breed Royal Lee. The descriptions of these cherries sound quite similar to each other in many respects, dark colored flesh, sweet, and good flavor. quote by goyo626: "I tried searching for cristobalina cherry patent info but nothing comes up. Can anyone direct me to the patent info on this variety. The only info I have found is that it is an old spanish variety. Thank you. " I feel reluctant to post this again, because I have already posted in several other places in this message board, but here it goes... There is a low chill Spanish heirloom variety cherry called Cristobalina. It is self-fertile and requires about 200 chill hours. Cristobalina has been grown for generations of cherry growers in Andalucia and Valencia, where winters are as mild as they are in Southern California, and reliably produces fruit despite lack of a cold winter. It is known to flower mid-February and produces dark purple, delicious sweet cherries. The only negative is that the fruit does not have as much edible flesh as other more popular cherry varieties, but thinning the tree can help lead to more full-sized fruit. Of course there would not be a patent on it, and this variety is not widely known in America.

Corn, unlike most other vegetable crops, is affected by cross pollination in the current generation. Popcorn crossed with sweet corn, for instance, will produce poor popcorn and poor sweet corn. If you are very lucky, they will pollinate at different times and will not cross. I would not count on being so lucky unless you are very familiar with their growth cycle and plan carefully. The surest method is to bag the tassels and the ear sprouts and hand pollinate. I wont't detail that process here. You can find it by searching the web. Jim

Hello tc88, Yes,the Bountiful Blue,Misty,Sunshine Blue and Legacy kept most of their leaves.Some others,like Star and Sweetcrisp,I recently acquired,so I'll find out next Winter. The leaves on some Southern Highbush,like Misty,to me, are kind of funky anyway,so some of them can get kind of crinkly looking,but I don't think I'd call it a disease.They seem to fair well here. This area does get it's share of rain,usually in November and December,but the overcast is the thing.Some places will get a lot of rain all at once and then it will clear up.Here,the gray may stay for a few days with not much precipitation. One Winter,I had to cover the Bountiful and Sunshine because snow was building up on the leaves and could have broken some branches and an ice storm came right after. Brady

I have been raising hybrid iris from seed since I was a wee tad... The offspring are usually healthy plants, though they will often have specific faults, which a breeder wants to cull. Also we run out of space if we keep the ones which are 'nice' but not an improvement on existing cultivars. That's the source of the 1 in 5000 type of odds that you will read about. If you are just out to have fun I think you will find at least 1 or 2 keepers from each pod of iris seeds that you grow. The golden rule is to use the best parents you have available as it is rare to get progeny which are superior to their parents. Some fun things to try - self an Iris (cross with same) - this form of extreme in-breeding will uncover good and bad recessive traits - true freaks like flatties etc. Cross two similar Iris from the same hybridizer - often a single breeders lines are related and the results of line crossing are usually better than "wide" crosses of unrelated cv. Chad