Tip number 1: hope to get lucky and don't be disappointed if you don't. All it takes is one seed to get a nice hybrid. Its just a matter of selecting the right seed to plant. The more seeds you have the more chances you have of getting that "one" seed.
Tip number 2: The better the hybrids you are working with the better hybrides you are going to be able to create. Work with dogs and you get flea's and perhaps another dog if your lucky. In short, a large percentage of your hybrides are not going to be as good as the parents you were working with if you are honest with yourself.
If your working with hybrides that have been extensively used for several years by several hybridizers, chances are whatever you create will not be as good as whats currently out on the market as these crosses have already been done hundreds of times over by other hybridizers. Why recreate the wheel when some has done it for you? Get the wheel and put it on the cart.Daylilly hybridizing notes
Much of what applies above applies here as well. Use the nicest hybrides you can find. If that means you can only get 2 daylillies to hybridize with that are trully spectacular, that beats the pants off of 5 that are simply beautiful, but not spectacular. Decide what characteristics you want and get hybrids with those characteristics to start with. Hope to get lucky. Generally speaking, one can apply the pollen to the pistal the day before the flower opens. The stigma will be poking out a bit sometimes which makes it easy enough to apply pollen. The day before the pistal opens one can also pull back or tear off the sepals and petals to expose the pistal. One does not need to tear the entire corolla off, just enough to expose the pistal to pollinate it. Best time of day to pollinate seems to be early morning just after the pollen ripens. You can collect daylilly pollen just after it ripens with a q-tip and store the pollen in film canisters for later use in the freezer. Otherwise the pollen isn't much good after the first few hours of daylight generally. Simply apply the frozen pollen on a pistal a month or year later with that pollen that you have frozen. Daylillies are self fertile. Some cultivars are better for seed production , others better for pollen, and still others have good seed production and good pollen to donate. What this means is simply this. Some hybrids are easier than others to set seed on and some hybrids have more viable pollen than others. Even the most stubborn cultivar that has poor seed setting ability and not the best pollen in the world can self seed though if one applies the pollen directly to the top of the stigma. Personally, I prefer to self a plant only as a last resort, but thats just me. I like to see more diversity.
Taking care of hybrid seed
Daylilly seed needs to be chilled for a few weeks before planting. Lastly, I just hybridize for fun. If anyone is serious about hybridizing and would like to add their own comments to this thread please do so. Any and all hybridizing tips are related to propagating so if you wish to add tips, please add them. I am sure there are many more qualified than me to talk about hybridizing daylillies and I expect to see much information shared here on this topic. At the very least it would be nice for a few amatures like myself to add their two cents in to give everyone a broad feel for hybridizing Hemerocallis. I posted this here in hopes that some more people will get interested in hybridizing. The more people out there trying to create better hybrids the better hybrids that we will all have.
Hope this helps,
Brugmansia
Hybridizing Hemerocallis
Brug,
I have never tried yet but am wanting to try hybridizing.
How do you know when the pollen is ready? Do you cover the lily you are using with anything after you pollenate?
Regards,
Diane
I have noticed on some hard to pollinate varieties of true lilies (lilium species)they implement the "cut style method" which is cutting the pistol halfway down so the pollen threads have a better chance of reaching the ovary to fertilize it. Has anyone tried this method with success? I am trying it out now by putting some tet pollen on a dip. Hope it works. This will be my first attempt and fertility of both cultivars is unknown.
Richmond
Brugs, I live in Fl, zone 9b, and my daylily seeds sprout in about 7 days. I never chill them or anything else. Just plant them. My problem is there aren't any around here to buy, very few anyway. All some sort of yellow or red or a combination of yellow and red. Kind of boring.
Brugmansia,
I have a couple of questions I would like to pose, to you or anyone else who could answer them. I was wondering
1) Do you find the traits of the pollen donor or the pod parent to be more dominant in the progeny?
2) If a tet pollen donor is fertile both ways and one is successful in setting seed on a dip pod parent then what ploidy are the progeny? And what if it is the other way around, tet pod and dip pollen?
Thank you for the info, this newbie is very anxious to start smearing pollen:)
Richmond
Richmond,
I won't be able to answer all of your questions, but I can add some tidbits.
On tets, I find that eyes are quite dominant whether they are the pod or pollen plant. Edges are somewhat dominant, but not to the extent that eyes are. These are just my personal observations-- other mileage may vary.
You probably won't be successful setting seeds from a diploid onto a tetraploid and vice versa. You may get what they call an "air pod". That is to say, the pod looks as though it is going to develop normally, then drys up and falls off. If you crack it open, you find that it contains nothing but.....air!
"Fertile both ways" refers to the fact that a plant is both pod and pollen fertile within it's respective ploidy. I can tell you that I have found Allegheny Sunset and Chestnut Mountain (both tets) to be both pod and pollen difficult. Diploids seem to be a little easier than tets as far as fertility.
Make tet crosses early in the morning. I get a better percentage of successful crosses when I get out there by 9 am.
For a fabulous tet parent, you can't beat "Something Wonderful." I think this little beauty set every pod I crossed onto it this year.
OK, I'm retarded, but what are tets and dips?
MG,welcome to the daylily world.Tetraploids have twice the number of chromosomes[44] than does diploids[22]The reproductive parts are half this amount.Pollen of tets contain 22 and dips contain 11.To confuse matters Triploids have 33 chromosones and can not divide in equal parts and thus infertile.There are seeds offered on the Daylily Exchange Auction at reasonable prices.
Thanks. I'm going to check their site.
Richmond, to answer your two questions:
1. In my experience, I find the pollen donor to be more dominant.
2. Tetraploid x diploid = Triploid, which may be a nice plant, but is itself infertile.
Sometimes I just look around to see what is in bloom, and make crosses... But if you are buying two spectacular daylilies to use as parents, I would make sure both are Tets! (Or dips).
As far as cold treatment, it seems to me that fresh seed germinates readily, but if it is stored to be planted later, some cold treatment helps.
Have fun with it! John