Asked for and received permission from Mike Sutton to start a thread for their 2019 introductions as they are posted on Sutton's Facebook page. Here are the first four:

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"Picture is of TB seedling AD-2-B which will be introduced in 2019."


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"Awesome garden flower from Anton Mego! To be introduced in 2019. Great branching, bud count, growth and bloom habits. Striking beards on very bright white flowers. Even though it is white it really pops in the garden. Not real happy with the single flower picture, doesn't portray it very well. it is wide and well formed with nice ruffling.
Will post names of all 2019 intros when they are confirmed.
Thanks for the amazing response to our cyber Monday gift card deal! Will be posting holiday deals in a week or so.

Updated single flower picture sent from Anton Mego, much nicer than mine!"


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"TB to be introduced in 2019. Names are all picked but haven't been confirmed yet, will update when they are."


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{{Okay, been reluctant to post this introduction. Have an impulse to hide it because I am greedy that way. At the end of the year, I usually get a plant gift certificate from my best friend. She generally chooses different vendors each year and last year was to Sutton. First time ever, I'm going to ask her, if she is gifting again this year, to repeat Sutton because I WANT this one and want to make sure I can stake a claim on it! }}

"Looks like we will have enough of this one next year. Excellent color, branching bud count and growth habits. 9 buds with a slight sweet scent. Pretty excited to be introducing a plicata again, been a few years. Really like this one and have used it a lot in breeding. seedling AZ-121-C."

Can understand the feeling Debra. I wanted all the Bee Hotels.....

Leslie

Debra, I can understand why you wanted to hide that last one. All of them are but that last one is

Barbara, Sutton's takes naming suggestions for their introductions, and one such for it was Black Cherry Sunrise. I like Chocolate Cherry (something or other), myself, better--I can just SEE chocolate in it. Will be interested to find out if they picked a suggestion.

I MUST have that last one!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My question is....how do vendors know their 2019 intros are when it is not 2019? I am guessing these intros bloomed in 2018, but there might not be enough to sell yet.

Or, something like this, I suppose.
2015: Crosses made
2016: Seedlings planted
2017: A seedling or two bloom
2018: Blooms everywhere
2019: Introduced?

lovemyhouse said:Barbara, Sutton's takes naming suggestions for their introductions, and one such for it was Black Cherry Sunrise. I like Chocolate Cherry (something or other), myself, better--I can just SEE chocolate in it. Will be interested to find out if they picked a suggestion.

I keep looking at it and my brain just keeps thinking "wow" ... I would be terrible at naming irises.
But I like your name suggestion.

Monty, I think it is something like that, only it may be on a longer timeline. They have bloom standards to meet (like bud count, durability, is it different enough from others like it, etc.), then, if the seedling passes all the hybridizer's tests and the decision is made to introduce it, they'll want to have a good stock on hand for sale.

I suspect many hybridisers give each potential introduction candidate a few years to mature and see how it performs, as well as allowing it to propagate enough to introduce. I'm just guessing, but I think it could easily be up to 10 years between the original cross and introduction.

I think it certainly would take a while to go from seed to intro.

Back in 2016, I purchased what was supposed to be Cultivar X from a certain iris garden. In 2017, it bloomed and it looked to me like it probably was NOT Cultivar X. Emails to the nursery ensued; it was determined that the NOID was a seedling from a particular cross (actually it is a sibling to Cultivar X) and Cultivar X was sent to me in the summer of 2017. Email with the nursery in 2018 revealed that they have plans to introduce the seedling, but they are building up stock, and it might take "a year or two". The nursery's 2019 intros are up on their site, and the seedling is not up there for 2019, so maybe next year (but maybe the year after).

So, at a minimum... (I don't know when they made the cross, but this is as fast as I can imagine it going...)

Year 0 (2013?) - make the cross, collect the seeds
Year 2 (2015?) - maiden bloom
Year 3 - 2016 - one of the increases mistakenly sent to me
Year 4 - 2017 - they are still evaluating, and I discover the mistake (emails with the nursery, get the correct plant)
Year 5 - 2018 - they decide they will intro the seedling but need to build up stock ("a year or two")
Year 6 - 2019 - not an intro, so building up stock
Year 7 - 2020 - earliest possible intro (but possibly later, in 2021 or even 2022)

So that's 7 years at a bare minimum.

I don't know what the target number of plants is to have for an introduction (and you can't sell all of them, because you need some to increase for future years), and I don't know what a typical number of iris increases is (let's call it 4-6 and every rhizome produces at least that number of healthy increases, and disaster doesn't strike (weather, critters, disease)). Let's also assume that it takes 2 years for an increase to itself grow large enough to bloom and produce more increases. So with maiden bloom in year 2:

Year 2 - 1 rhizome, maiden bloom
Year 3 - 4 to 6 increases growing
Year 4 - 4 to 6 increases bloom
Year 5 - 16 to 36 increases growing
Year 6 - 16 to 36 increases bloom
Year 7 - 64 to 216 increases growing
Year 8 - 64 to 216 increases bloom
Year 9 - 256 to 1296 increases growing; can ship during summer

Thanks for the insight, everyone!

I really wouldn't be surprised if it took 5-10 years for a cross made in 2013 to become an intro in 2020. It would be hard for me to wait so long for a cross I made seven years ago!

I'm sure it helps, that, if you are prolifically crossing irises, seven years wouldn't be so bad because every year you have intros to finally release. If you were just starting to release intros, then that might be more difficult to wait.

Sigh, but hopefully, that'll be me waiting painstaking amounts of time to release nice intros for y'all. At best, I'm guessing seven years until then!

UndyingLight said:Thanks for the insight, everyone!

I really wouldn't be surprised if it took 5-10 years for a cross made in 2013 to become an intro in 2020. It would be hard for me to wait so long for a cross I made seven years ago!

I'm sure it helps, that, if you are prolifically crossing irises, seven years wouldn't be so bad because every year you have intros to finally release. If you were just starting to release intros, then that might be more difficult to wait.

Sigh, but hopefully, that'll be me waiting painstaking amounts of time to release nice intros for y'all. At best, I'm guessing seven years until then!

But Monty, you're a young guy. Think what it's like if you're in your 70's or 80's! Some of us just love hybridizing!

You have to be patient to hybridize, but the rewards are great! For larger vendors it can take longer to introduce just because they need enough stock to distribute properly. If you dont intend on distributing, it could be registered in a few years instead of 7 or 8.

I bet Brad @ARUBA1334 can give you a good idea of how long it takes to go from seed to introduction.

I bet he can, too, Leslie.

TEASER ALERT!! TEASER ONLY!!
(Don't get mad at me, okay? So gorgeous I had to post it. )

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"Thought it would be fun to revisit some favorite seedlings from the past couple of springs. Several will be introduced this upcoming year, will post the names when they are confirmed.
This was probably my favorite from this past spring (although it was tough to name a favorite) It's been put in the fast track area in the garden but won't be out in 2019.
Tall bearded seedling # AD-569-C"

Deb ~ Oh, that is gorgeous!

Yes it is!

Wow - that's a beauty!