I am new at hybridizing so I don't know alot about the ploidity of daylilies so I am just running thru my neighborhood grabbing pollen from any lilies that are different tham my own and dusting my lilies in hopes of some nice seeds. Anyways.......my favorite red is about ready to bloom and I'd like to cross it with a nice ruffly white or very lite pink. I'm willing to pay or trade. I've checked LA but there isn't any pollen there. Thanx!
looking for pollen
Hi Roxanne,
Before you pollinate, you need to know if your daylily is a diploid or a tetraploid The difference is in the chromosomes which the tets have more of. These extra chromosomes makes it impossible for these to cross. You can't tell by looking at them, you need to know their names so you can look it up on the web or Daves. It will mention if the daylily is a tet or dip.
You know, you can cross your red daylily with its own pollen to get a seed pod. Do that in the cool hours of the morning. Unlike other plants, daylilies will not set pods when it is pollinated when the temperature is high. Using the pollen that your plant have, could give you some unique seedlings. Usually each seed produces a different color seedling. There are generations of genetic material in ever daylily seed, and not the same in each.
The reason there is no pollen for sale on LA is because the policy for selling pollen is pretty strict.
This message was edited Jul 25, 2014 9:55 PM
Thanks for the reply. I knew about the chromozome problem but I don't know it's name. I got it a a flea market and it was marked red. It is red and it is gorgeous! I've just been pollinating it with everythig else that's blooming and speading it's pollen around too. I'm going to be getting Victorian Lace from bluegrassmom so I'll just try that next year. Hopefully it's a match. I thought that lily's weren't self fertile so I never tried to pollinate it with it's own pollen. I'll have to try that tomorrow. Thanks!