Why Hybridize?

1. WhyHybridize? For Fun, Fame & Fortune Presentation produced by Doug McKemie & Sandy Perkins East Texas Daylilies, Athens, TX

2. The fun of hybridizing is the joy that comes with producing beautiful flowers that have never been seen before. The surprise of unexpected shapes, colors, and patterns must be experienced first hand to be appreciated.

3. ‘Dr. Celia Stump’ (Grace, 2011) Teeth and Tentacles on the edges of petals and sepals …..

4. ‘Veto’ (Townsend, J, 2011) Those exciting Toothy edges with colorful eyes … and

5. Unusual color and color patterns are some of the fun things you might see if you hybridize. Seedling 14-39-3 McKemie/Perkins

6. There is the allure of fame. Just mention the name of Stamile, Trimmer, or Carpenter, and you can probably name numerous beautiful flowers registered by them.

7. ‘Quartz Rainbow’ (Stamile, 2007)

8. ‘Cosmic Kaleidoscope’ (Carpenter-J, 2006)

9. And then there is fortune. Who wouldn’t want to have the first “blue” daylily or sell their first registered beauty for lots of money. The more fame and fortune, the more you want to get out there and make those crosses and produce those beautiful flowers.

10. This seedling sold for $796.00 on the daylily auction

11. Four fans of this seedling sold for $700.00

12. This seedling sold for $700.00

13. The Basics of Hybridizing

14. Terms • Self Cross – pollinating the flower with it’s own pollen. • Back Cross – a term used for breeding a plant back to either parent. • Reciprocal Cross – (A X B). The reciprocal cross would be (B X A). • Line breeding – a method used to reproduce a desirable characteristic(s) by crossing related plants over several generations. • Self Fertile – would make a pod if self pollinated. • Pod and Pollen Fertile – the best of both worlds. The plant will set pods and has fertile pollen. • Stamen – Each stamen has a stalk called the filament that ends with a two-lobed anther filled with dust-like yellow pollen. • Pistil – At the base is the ovary, where the seeds develop. A long style extends from this. The tip is swollen and flared to form the stigma. The stigma receives the pollen. • Diploid - A plant having two complete sets of the basic set of chromosomes. A diploid daylily has 22 chromosomes. One set of 11 comes from the egg cell, one set from the sperm cell in the pollen. • Tetraploid - Having four sets of chromosomes in each cell of the plant (in daylilies, 44 chromosomes altogether.) That is twice the number found in the sex cells (sperm and egg). • Genotype - Genetic constitution of an individual or group, deduced from data provided by breeding experiments; the entire genetic makeup of an individual (gemone). Example: RR = red in garden peas. Individuals of the same genotype breed alike. • Phenotype – a word description of genotype. Example: tall red in garden peas. 

15. Reproductive Parts Illustrated Anthers (pollen bearing) (Male) Stigma & Style (Female)

16. “Tools of the Trade” • Pencil • Tweezers • Hybridizing tags • Paper envelopes • Poly bags • Pollen vial • Identification tags once seeds are potted

17. Once the pollen on the anthers has become “fluffy”, it is ready to be used on the stigma. The stigma tip will sometimes be “sticky” which helps pollen to adhere. Transfer of pollen to stigma

18. At the time of pollination, a tag identifying the pollen parent is put on the base of the pollinated flower. Successful pollination results in a pod.

19. Too many pods may stress the pod parent. It is best to pollinate only two or three flowers per scape. You could use the flowers on the other scapes if you have several fans in bloom. Too many pods may stress the pod parent. It is best to pollinate only two or three flowers per scape. You could use the flowers on the other scapes if you have several fans in bloom.

20. When the pods are ready to harvest they will begin to turn brown and show a slight crack in the seam between the chambers. The pollination tag is collected and the pod parents name is then added to the tag with the pollen parent.

21. Once seeds have been harvested, they should be air dried for a few days in paper envelopes. After drying we put the seeds into a small poly bag listing the pod parent first and pollen parent second on the outside. The seeds are then chilled in the refrigerator for at least 3 to 4 weeks before starting the germination process.

22. Seeds from successful pods. maturation Tetraploid Seeds Diploid Seeds

23. Some hybridizers start their seeds directly in the ground. We start our seeds by placing them in a 4 inch pot with soilless potting mix such as Redi Earth. Each cross is identified with a white plastic tag, with the name of the pod and pollen parent. They are lightly pressed into the soil and kept moist. This is what the seeds will look like once they have started to germinate.

24. The seedlings are kept in a temperature controlled greenhouse until they are ready to be put into one gallon pots.

25. When your new seedlings go from this size . . . . . . to this, it is time to put them into larger pots with rich organic soil.

26. Good flowers begin with good soil. • The first key to good, healthy plants is good soil. • Our soil is a combination of sand, organics such as wood chips, leaves, rabbit and/or horse manure.

27. This is how we prepare our potting soil. We are fortunate to have “old blue”, but if you don’t have a grinder available, try and find a good garden soil to transplant your new seedlings in. We put the mixture of organics through the grinder to get our finished potting soil mix.

28. This is the finished ground up potting mix we use to move our baby seedlings into one gallon pots.

29. Once seeds have germinated in community pots and are big enough, we divide them and transfer to one gallon pots.

30. As we transfer the seedlings, each pot has its own identification tag. The first pot has the number and name of the cross. The remainder of the pots with the same cross just have the ID number, then the number of the pot (such as 16-01-#2, 16-01-#3, etc.)

31. Starting your seedlings in a potting mix with rich organics such as wood chips, manure, and ground leaves gives your plants a good start. Our soil is pure sand and we have to amend it on a regular basis to make sure the daylilies have the best chance possible to be big, strong, healthy plants that we would be proud to show, sell, or use in hybridizing. While fertilizer helps, your soil makes a big difference, as seen in the next slide.

32. The seedlings to the left were grown in organic rich potting mix. Those to the right were grown in the ground without soil amendment. Notice the difference in the roots.

33. Once potted, the plants are put into a greenhouse and are grown to bloom size. After blooming, plants are either marked for further observation, sold as seedlings or culled.

34. It’s Christmas every day when your seedlings are old enough to bloom. Going out in the garden every morning, you see for the first time the results of all your hard work. Now comes more fun, and maybe the fame and fortune. You need to decide what to keep, what to cull and what to give away. How to make these decisions? Maybe the following information will help.

35. If you are going to hybridize for fun, then keeping records of the parentage might not be important to you.But, if you have a seedling you want to register or sell, you will want to keep good records of who the pod and pollen parents are. The following table is how we keep a record of our seedlings, from start (germination) to finish (being planted in the ground, culled, or marked for further observation). We have found after some trial and error, that putting the seed crosses in alphabetical order helps with keeping track of them. After germination, they are given an identification number, which helps with cross referencing them.

36. Example of record keeping from seeds to seedlings The first number in the ID section is the year it will be identified with. The second number is the seed cross. When we cross a seedling by a seedling, in the name/cross information, we list the seedling number first then the cross (such as 16-55).

37. ‘Violet Becomes You’ – Pod parent ‘Duke of Gascone’ - Pollen parent The Art of Hybridizing XX F1 of the above cross A-125-2

38. Average Nice Garden daylilies Poor to average Average to good Culled and composted Not every cross makes beautiful babies. Keepers

39. These are from the right side of the bell curve.

40. In order to critique the flower, we take pictures of each plant as it blooms. After the bloom season is over with, we have more time to make a decision on the future of each plant. Following are some of the tetraploid hybrid crosses we’ve made in our garden and the results.

41. ‘Cerise Beauty’ – Pod parent ‘Bullfrog Kisses’ – Pollen parent A-20-1 seedling X

42. ‘Dragon Knife’ – Pod parent ‘Collective Spirit’ – Pollen parent A-34-1 seedlingSometimes you don’t see either parent in the offspring. X

43. A-79-2 seedlingTomato Bisque - 2015 ‘Leslie Renee’- Pod parent X ‘Seminole Princess’- Pollen parent

44. ‘Doyle Pierce’ – Pod parent ‘Elderberry Candy’ – Pollen parent A-28-1 seedling A- 28-3 seeding X Genetic possibilities are endless!

45. ‘Crazy Ivan’ – Pod parent ‘Smile Again’ – Pollen parent T-14-3 seedling X

46. ‘Fool’s Errand’ – Pod parent ‘Sherry Candy’ – Pollen parent X The sky is the limit for genetic recombination B-09 1 thru 7

47. X No culls here ‘Fantasy Fringe’ – Pollen parent ‘Rita Sue’ – Pod parent 12-63-1 thru 10

48. ‘Meet Joe Black’ – Pod parent ‘Cherry Valentine’ – Pollen parent X There were a total of 13 seedlings from this cross. Out of that 13, only 2 were really good. Those two were registered in 2014.

49. These are the two seedlings which we registered in 2014 from the cross ‘Meet Joe Black’ X ‘Cherry Valentine.’ Both really stand out in the garden. They had more branching than their siblings, both increase rapidly, produce proliferations (which is another way of increasing), and have very good plant habit. Both are pod and pollen fertile, fragrant and rebloom. ‘In Between Dances’ has been the first to bloom in the garden for the past four years. ‘Margaret Gibson’ ‘In Between Dances’

50. ‘Magical Mystery Show’ – Pod parent ‘Dragon Knife’ – Pollen parent X A-83-1 thru 5