Hybridizing

I have been asked by some of the members of this forum to post and share information on hybridizing. We still have some talented hybridizers on board and I do hope they will jump in on any questions pertaining to northern or southern hybridizing. Also I have limited experience with Ufo's and spiders so any question on those would be directed to the hybridizers growing those forms.
The daylily growers and hybridizers population has been scattered in recent months and I do fear this could become a problem with the advancement in daylilies, everywhere you find a site you find and opinion of how daylilies should be grown and hybridized. Well ....What’s your favorite color? Hybridizing is about individuals who are searching for that perfect daylily, one that they dream of in their own mind - no more no less, it's that simple and has nothing to do with who has the prettiest seedling on a front page of a daylily site, most of the seedlings you see are thrown in the compost pile due to lack of one thing or another, so just think you could be drooling over garbage….lol. These are my thoughts on hybridizing!

I will be glad to share photos of seedlings with parentage, for those who may be interested in something that might work into their program or may be of interest to someone getting started.
I will leave the posts short so others may jump in and share their thoughts.

ROSES AND GOLD is one of favorite parents for the reds and purples…..parent to Born to Run also Violet Becomes You and other notables………

ROSES AND GOLD X WONDER OF IT ALL

This is a bit of a twist.....MONTANA SKY X ROSES AND GOLD

Another nice parent is SONG WRITER.......

SONG WRITER X SPACECOAST WILLIE MARKUS

In search of the green edge i found GREEN REVOLUTION to be and acceptional parent....

SCARLET LACE X GREEN REVOLUTION

Sib to above.......

JOHNNY CASH x BORN TO RUN

Sib to above.....good variation

For a good chance at a bi-tone PEPPERMINT PINWHEEL is a good choice'''

PEPPERMINT PINWHEEL X PINK ALOHA

Thanks for the lessons and your thoughts Lyle. It always amazes me how big a difference there can be between daylily sibblings. It just blows my mind sometimes to see how different they can really be.

I can't afford the expensive daylilies so I would never be able to make any crosses that would be of interest to anyone. I would have to say daylilies have come so far in the last 10 years it's unreal. They just keep getting fancier and more colorful each year. I can't even begin to imagine where they will go from here. Thanks again! Marian

If you cannot afford the parents, a good way to get the genetics you want.is to buy seeds from those parents Pick the seedlings that have the traits you want and use them for the next generation. This will of course take several years, but no longer that it would if you had the parent plants and made the crosses yourself.

Marian - That is what most think you need high dollard daylilies if you check most of the major hybridizer they keep going back to older cultivar to bring out something new. I will show some daylily crosses from $10 daylilies for those who don't want to sink a fortune into daylilies but have very nice seedlings.......

SPACECOAST STARBURST $8.00 X LARRY GRACE $7.00 maybe less?

Seedling priceless....lol - sorry i just had to do that

SCSBXLG

LARRY GRACE X ED BROWN ......Both parents $10 dollars or less

Here is the parents of BONNIE HOLLEY...both $10 or less.....

ED BROWN X AMERICA'S MOST WANTED

I agree on getting genes from the seeds. One thing to remember you are dealing with several generations and will need a lot more than a few seeds, which you will need deep pockets on the LA to buy the top crosses and you still have no guarantee you will bloom out a cutting edge seedling so back to inexpensive daylilies which you should be able to enjoy in the garden and set pod on and with long crosses have a great chance of a top notch seedling.

This is a seedling bloomed out in 2008 and for those who like the toothy ones checkout the bottom side in the cross….

LICORICE CAND 10 years old X REYNA 8 years old

Lyle, are either of those parents toothy? That's a great looking daylily!

Thank You so very much!!! it is eye opening to see how you go about your crosses. also, i love that you show some great parents and what kind of results you have gotten. to those of us "newbie" pollen dabbers, it is hard to look past a pretty face. but, truely evaluating a plant on it's other attributes are really the must important aspects of hybridizing. i had heard that song writer was a good parent. i will have to get me some of it! lol

Pleeeese post more when you get a chance. i always love looking at your pics and i look forward to picking your brain a bit more! :)

tracie

Lyle is right about not needing expensive daylilies to get some nice seedlings. Being he doesn't mess with ufs much I will try to help from that end. My first intro(Lillian Kathleen) was from Miss Jessie a 1956 registration from Hardy. Lillian Kathleen was the beginning of my uf program and is the background of several of my intros. A lot of them also have Jack Temples flowers in them which were cheap when I got them and really inexpensive today. If you read Jamie Gossard's description's he is still using the old Temple flowers. Lillian's Thin Ice came from Lillian's Sweet Thang which came from Gentle Shepherd an old near white from Yancy. There are so many sets of genes in a daylily that what you might get is endless. As most here know I buy several collections every year but use very few to hybridize with, I really try to use my own stuff as much as possible. If a new intro really stands out in my mind I will use it on some of my things for a couple of seasons.The photo is Lillian's Jack Temple, this years intro from (Rainbow Spangles x Lillian Kathleen) x Lillian Kathleen x Marked by Lydia). All parents are from the 80s and 90s.

Fred,
thanks for the additional info. could you please go into any tips that might help with pollinating spiders and ufo's? i had very few seeds set on mine last year.

also, i wanted to try some doubles, but had problems. it seemed that many times the pistil was split into several pieces. what do you do then? lol

oh, and that has to be the biggest spider i have ever seen! :)

tracie

Well I've learned a great deal from the two of you in a very short time. Now all I have to do is go out there and dig up all my daylilies, divide them into groups- tets and dips and replant them. (scratching my head). When I got them I just stuck them in the ground without any consideration as to what they were, how tall they would get, or even the colors. Now I'm kicking myself for just plopping in the ground. (frown)

I'm thinking it might be easier to just make a list of all the plants in each flowerbed and then which ever has less of one kind in it dig them all up and replace them with the same kind from another bed. Hum, I'm not sure there's a good way out of this mess I've created with daylilies. I guess another way I could do it is to just write tet or dip on all the plants and just leave them where they are.

Some of you big time hybridizers tell me what I should do regarding this delemia. Tell me what "you" would do if they were in one of your gardens. Oh and how in the world can you tell the difference between a tet or a dip if you got some seedlings without any names or other information regarding them other than daylily seedlings.????

I need to get this all figured out before everything is growing full force this year. We have a big John Deere Tractor and a tiller so digging up a couple more huge beds would not be too big of a problem. I think I'll just turn this whole field out front into a daylily garden. It may take 10 years to fill it all in with daylily seedlings. It sure would be beautiful to see the entire field swaying with blooms.

This is a bed with a few of my daylilies outback but I could make it alot bigger if necessary. Living on an old non working farm leaves alot of room for new plants and gardening ideals. I maybe hybridizing daylilies alot sooner than any of you may have thought. LOL

Aggiegirl: If your going to mess with spiders and ufs you must have patience when trying to set seed. I do 99% dips and most are difficult pod parents. When I want to make a cross I will do the same thing day after day and watch most not take, but it will eventually pay off with a pod or two. You don't need a lot of seed to get something you can be happy with. The larger the bloom the harder to set seed because the pistol is so long. I have never been able to set a pod on the flower above.
I stopped doing doubles several years ago, just trying to do to many things at one time. I do know that a lot of doubles have very little pollen and have the pistol problem you mentioned. Another form you have to have lots of patience to work with.
A little advice from someone who has done this for a long time: Pick two forms you want to work with and stick with it. If you try to do them all you will not get much satisfaction while working so hard the enjoyment will be lost. I have been there.

I'm going to get DH to till up the whole front pasture that the neighbors call our golf course to put my daylilies in.
Big Fat Grin. But how in the world am I going to control the grass and weeds that will grow faster than the daylilies?

patience huh? hmmmm, that is hard to do! lol yeah, that darn pistil is so long on many of them. i think you are right, too much is too much. i just thought it would be fun to try on some doubles. but, i didnt get one seed to set due to the pistil splitting problem. i think my main focus will be on large full forms and ufo's. those are the ones that really get me going! thanks for the advice! :)

tracie

I guess I was really lucky my first season of pollen dabbing, I got 2 pods on a double 'Night Embers' that I crossed with Kasbah Fez, and the other is unknown. So far I only have 2 seedlings, 1 from each pod. I did share half of the seed with a Tucson friend.

I read somewhere that if the pistil is too long to cut it shorter.

Margaret

In general, I believe the spiders are more likely to be dips, but no guarantees. The bagel style are more likely to be tets. Only way to know for sure is to try pollen of both types, label them, and see which take.

You can have a great NOID daylily parent. I used to think I had to track "bloodlines", getting the latest, also. While that's useful, it's definitely not required. Now, I focus on traits, not forgetting the plant's habits. I can breed to pretty up a flower, but does the plant rebloom, have strong growth, etc.? Using some of the everblooming, or strong repeat bloomers, with some of the older varieties can make wonderful plants.

I tend toward polytepals. Getting new genetics into a polytepal line, then trying to bring back the extra petals, should keep me busy for the next decade. lol

I must admit I didn't really know what I was doing, just merrily dabbing pollen here and there.;~) But now thanks to Lyle, Fred, and the other hybridizes I will give it a lot more thought!!

Well Mcash you had much better luck than me. LOL I dabbed and dabbed but didn't have a clue what I was doing. I didn't get a single seed pod. But at least I learned that if I'm going to try to make any crosses I need to do the tet to tet and dip to dip plants instead of just looking and trying to make crosses out of EVERYTHING.

I'm going to try a little harder this year and I'm also going to try to harvest some of the pollen so I can use it on the other plants as they bloom later in the season. (grin)

Marian

Hi Marian, I had at least learned that you had to cross a tet wit a tet and a dip with a dip...lol. I have 34 little seedlings and they are doing pretty good under grow lights. I did freeze pollen, hopefully it will still be good come summer, so I will have more early choices as the DLs start to bloom. I only start to get bloom late June or early July depending on the weather.

Margaret

Be sure to listen to Lyle and Fred about the plant habit. It is so important to breed a good plant along with a nice bloom. There are far too many that have very weak points opting for beauty alone and they are not keepers.

I have been watching my seedlings for 2 years now and have made note of the real strong growers that produce good foliage and that have multiple fans now. Should have a lot bloom this year and I will be paying particular attention to those. I have been looking at the parentage of some of them and I see several with certain parents back a few generations that are known to have those traits, I find that so interesting just for my own sake and to find out that some of those older varieties are the base of good lines.

I am planning on taking some of the hardy extended blooming Hems I have and make a lot of crosses on them with some of the newer beauties I got. Also want to get some patterns into the mix and ruffles everywhere and teeth like a sword.

Steph it really was fun hybridizing, it was so exciting when I got some pods, then opening them and seeing the shiny seeds, and now the little seedlings.

I sure will pay attention to what Lyle and Fred said about plant habit, making sure that it does well in my zone, I have already decided that a few are going from my garden, including those that I don't care for.

Betty – I haven’t chased down the progeny on the seedling to find which parent may have been responsible for the teeth.

Tracie – I’m sure with your large collection of daylilies you will be like a kid in a candy store. As Fred mentioned patience and finding a direction you intend to carry a program will get you closer to achieving your goals. The first two seasons are the hardest you will first just want to set pods on what ever is handy, that is usually the first mistake in hybridizing “and most of use have done that”…lol Well” planed crosses will produce better results. You have mentioned Song Writer as a parent you may also want to look at Roses and Gold, another lesser know is MONTANA SKY this daylily sets pod for me even in warmer conditions I now have a pod parent from my line that is very pod fertile and produces nice seedlings with good plant habit, it is always a good idea to have a daylily you can go to if you need to test fertility. The process is endless.


Lovelyiris – I would recommend, if nothing else, at least give the plants you plan to cross a number in case you have a knock out seedling it is nice to know where to go back and make a long cross.

Margaret – A well known hybridizer Luddy Lambertson has be quoted saying he has bloomed out 2 seeds from a cross and come up with a winner so no cross is too small, you just have to remember time is important in the cycle of a seedling to daylily.

Steph- It is always nice to see your input and I do hope you will share some of your thoughts on your program.

Beakerlj – Our good friend Leslie (LaLambchop) also hybridizes for polytepal maybe she will drop by. I can see where the polys could be a very demanding program.

For those who may be lurking and don’t fell comfortable on the topic of hybridizing, please ask questions a lot of folks here have a vast amount of stored knowledge and like to share…

Good rules to follow….

Hybridizing Goals and Criteria for Selection

► The plant comes first! After all, most daylilies flower over a three-month period.
At all other times, only foliage is visible.

► There are two distinct types of foliage — evergreen and dormant. Many cultivars’
habit lies between the two and may vary depending on climate.
►The plant must:
— increase well without pampering
— perform well with blooms throughout most of the growing season
(preferably have recurrent scapes)
— exhibit some degree of resistance to rust as well as crown rot
— have foliage that does not interfere with floral presentation
— have good plant balance (large flower on tall scape, small flowers on
shorter scapes)

Hybridizing Criteria

Although the daylily bloom season usually lasts for just three months, the flowers are usually what many hybridizers look at first when making their selections.

Criteria by which I make my selections include:
— Color
— Distinction
— Form
— Sunfastness & Weather
Resistance

FOCUS. For all of us that are new to this it is of utmost importance to focus on your end goal and not get off track. At least too far. I have made that mistake and am in the process now of deciding what must go to make room for what I NEED.
Dip or Tet. Which will you be working with. It is hard to do both if limited space and time are a problem.
Ruffled-Patterned-Green Eyed-Small-Large-Double-Spider- Narrow the field and stick with it.
Check on the parentage of the plants before you purchase or if you already have one you love-check out and select ones that will compliment it or Vise Versa.
Begin now assigning numbers to the plant and what you want to do with each one. Make a Plan.
Test you soil every year and make amendments where and when needed, They cannot grow on air.
Ask questions and keep asking. We are never done learning. If you mess up don't quit-just re-focus.

Steph - Very good advice!

This thread may get long so if anyone has a slow provider please send a D mail and we can start a new thread. I think the Hybridizing Criteria is what most new hybridizer look at, even some with more years of experience. In the beginning of this thread I posed the question whats your favorite color in a different manor but now literally.

Some like the dark colors. For this you would want to find something that first of all is pod or pollen fertile both is preferred. I have used DAKAR and feel it is one of the better parents for dark colors...

This seedling was given to a fellow club member who has a program for dark sun fast colors and this seedling fit the criteria so he will take it to the next level.......

beautiful color on that seedling, lyle.

ok, this sounds like a stupid question, but here it goes....
why number each daylily rather than use an abbreviation (with master list)?

for instance, i would know that GSTQ was God Save The Queen, but i might not know it was #125 (for example), without looking.

tracie

Another cross with good results for darks is FORTUNES DEAREST X BLISSFUL BLACKBERRY PIE

Some have daylilies without name tags or NOID's so to distinguish one from another I would give each plant a number,,,The cross might read using the pod parent first of course would be something like this 001X012 this way if this cross produces a nice seedling you would have a way to find it,

thanks lyle for the answer. i love that last seedling you posted! wow, such nice color and edge. purple is really my favorite dl color. after seeing your posts last year on BBP, i HAD to get it. i got one or two funky blooms and then it crownrotted. :( ah, well, i reordered it for spring. hopefully, i will have better luck this time.

tracie

Here is another take on BBP with a different pod parent. This seedling shows a patterned eye on its maiden bloom season...

HELINE PRESSLEY X BLISSFUL BLACKBERRY PIE

Sib to above....

Ok my interest is in Very Large Pinks with Green throats and or Mega Ruffles/Teeth. Patterns will play a part in this too, but they must be Northern Hardy so I am taking some Very Tried and True Northern Hems and crossing Southern Pinks and patterns on them, then I am taking some Pinks I have and putting teeth on them.

Reds- I am after a huge Ruffles or Teeth. I do not want a pattern or a different color edge. It must be Northern Hardy also. The Petals and Sepals must have the same edge and be as round as I can get them. If a pattern does emerge I will not look the other way if it is a desirable Hem.

I have purchased and been gifted plants that have a lot of the qualities I am needing to pass on so have now made a list of all the crosses I will do this year that will hopefully get me closer to the above.

In my Files I have numbered all the plants and seedlings I have and if ever I need to look at the info it is there. I also COPIED each one into a file for EV-SEV-DOR-, and again into files for Extended bloom-Heavy Rebloomers-Large Blooms-Good Plant Habit-Color-Pattern-Edge-Form-Rust Resistance-Sun and Rain Resistant Etc. This way If I am looking for a certain element I want I can go to that file to see what I have that offers it.

As always Lyle You are the greatest.
Steph

Ohhh, I love that last one! I am several years away from hybridizing, I have seen pictures but never seen actual flowers of some of these, much less their habits & stuff - like teeth. So I have a variety planted, so I can figure out what I like best. Hopefully I will have a productive flowering season this year, and that my 'experimental' seeds survive and thrive also.

Not ready to print this column out yet, there is so much good information on it that people are updating every day. Thanks to all the hybridizers that are passing on their knowledge to us ~j