Thanks for the form, Gabe. There are some good points there, but clearly one is expected to know what constitutes things like good substance, branching, and so forth. I do like his idea of "20% better or 20% different", although that requires a fair amount of iris experience and/or cultivar knowledge to know what constitutes better or different (and by how much). To my mind, a reblooming iris with a fancy modern face might fit that description, but I could be wrong.
Tom's suggestion of iris judge training has its merits; it would teach those points. I did that with daylily garden judge training and it was useful, but it automatically landed me on the list of garden judges, although that was never my intention.
Lucy and Bonnie, thanks for pointing out the issue of bloom to foliage relationship. Some daylilies also have the flaw (imho) of having the daylilies bloom just barely above the foliage (and sometimes down in it).
As for the idea that there are no short cuts going from evaluating daylilies to irises... well, a lot of older iris hybridizers moved to daylilies (and let's not forget Bill Maryott), so presumably there are actually a lot of things in common. "Substance" I gather is an issue for both flowers. I know what constitutes good substance for a daylily bloom, so it is just a matter of determining what that means in the iris world. I hate it when daylily blooms don't open properly... so I would be on the lookout for something like that in iris blooms (if such ever occurs).
But what constitutes good branching and budcount in an iris? I haven't a clue.
What constitutes good foliage (or conversely, as one person put it, "messy" foliage)? Not a clue. What about what constitutes an acceptable flower form for an iris introduction? Daylilies are all over the map there (and some of them are getting to be..
to my mind). Are touching or overlapping falls a necessity? Is the bloom (and thus the plant) considered "flawed" without them?
All of this, while of course useful and important to know, goes beyond the scope of the question, which is how to evaluate (and cull) seedlings
prior to maiden bloom, which once again comes back to the foliage, the vigor of growth, and maybe (because I'm not sure how this works) the rate of increase.
