I recently purchased seed from a much warmer climate which then made me wonder whether the daylily seedlings produced from this seed would be cold hardy. In terms of growing seed is cold hardiness (or heat tolerance) dependent upon where the parent plants are grown or dependent on the foliage type of the parent plants (Evergreen vs. Dormant)? Or does it depend upon whether the parent plants are cold hardy regardless of foliage type or location grown? Does the location where the seed is sown play any role in this?

Passionate4gardening said: .... Or does it depend upon whether the parent plants are cold hardy regardless of foliage type or location grown? Does the location where the seed is sown play any role in this?

I would say it depends more on whether the parent plants are cold hardy in your garden regardless of foliage type. Any foliage type can be hardy or not, and foliage habit may change depending on where the plant is grown in any case. In some other plants in nature where the seeds were produced can also be a factor but I don't know that that would apply to something human-hybridized like daylilies. Maurice may be able to answer that better than me @admmad

@Passionate4gardening Are you going to plant the seeds directly in your garden? Are you going to start them inside and then plant the seedlings in your garden in the spring?

I would say it would depend more on whether the parents are cold hardy. Some evergreens can thrive in the northern-most zones, while most cannot.

Thank you @Sooby and @Shive1

@admmad, your question is exactly what I was debating on. I started a few seeds inside and was going to start a few outside. Which then resulted in the questions. Starting the seed inside, they will not be subject to the cold. Would they then not make it the first winter here in the garden. On the other hand, planting outside, would they have any chance of surviving the winter. Does the environment the seed is grown play any role in surviving the winter?

Of course I realize no guarantee in terms of survival of a seedling. I just didn't know what factors, if any, I should take into consideration in terms of cold hardiness being that the seeds came from a warmer climate.

Thank you @Passionate4gardening.

Yes, the environment when the seed is developing can affect its characteristics. In some cases (it is known to happen in other plant species) the environment that the pod parent experiences even before any seed start to develop can affect the seed characteristics. We do not know if that is the case with daylilies for either of those situations.

There are at least several factors that may affect a seed or a seedling surviving winter in a location with a cold climate. The actual temperatures that the seed or seedling can survive is one factor. That temperature can depend on whether the change in temperature is abrupt or slow and how large the temperature changes are. As well the length of the winter is important. A seedling before its first winter must grow well enough to store sufficient "resources" to survive the winter and to sprout well in the following spring. Seedling mortality of plants in general is highest the first winter. The longer the seedling is able to grow before winter arrives the more resources it should be able to store and the better able it should be to acclimate to cold temperatures and survive winter.
One of the factors that may determine the fate of a seed is whether it is "dormant" or not. This is a characteristic of the seed and the conditions it experienced while developing on the pod parent. It is not necessarily associated with the registered foliage characteristics of the parents in the locations that they were hybridized.

I am assuming that since you purchased the seeds you do not grow the parents in your garden. That assumption means you do not know how hardy the parents would be in your location and growing conditions.

Biology is usually not simple. What I am going to write about in the next section may complicate matters.

In the past, say 80 years ago the foliage registration categories would have been a reasonable first guess for whether a daylily would be very cold hardy or not necessarily so. That is because different daylily species had different characteristics and were native to different locations with different climates. Some of their characteristics would be related to those "home" ranges. "Evergreen" daylilies would have had warmer climates to contend with than "deciduous" daylilies and their cold hardiness would likely have been matched with their foliage characteristics. However, cold hardiness and foliage are not the same characteristic. They can become completely independent when the different species are crossed together and many generations are produced. That happened with daylilies. So cold hardiness and registered foliage characteristics will have become independent - a daylily registered as "evergreen" could be more cold hardy than a daylily registered as "deciduous" (or "dormant").
However, as daylilies became more popular daylily hybridizers grew in numbers and locations with some hybridizers moving from cold winter locations to warm winter locations. Hybridizing any plant in a warm winter location will change its characteristics, particularly its cold hardiness. Unless the hybridizer takes steps to counter that change the cold hardiness of the breeding population of their daylilies will lessen over time. Their breeding populations will become adapted to the environment in their locations. One more Northern hybridizer and one more Southern hybridizer saw that happening with their daylilies and decided to introduce daylilies from each other into their breeding populations to counter the change. That was some time ago. Since then one would have to check each hybridizer's choice of daylilies as parents to see if they introduce daylilies from sufficiently different environments to their breeding populations to counter the natural selection and adaptation of their breeding populations to their own specific conditions (location and environment).

So
Originally there would have been a pattern between foliage characteristics and cold hardiness.
With crosses between different daylily species adapted to different environments that pattern will have been changed and possibly completely lost.
With deliberate crosses of daylilies with contrasting environmental backgrounds and possibly characteristics, that pattern can be changed and possibly completely lost.
With closed breeding populations in substantially different environments natural selection will act to adapt the daylilies to their environments. So patterns in different characteristics that are not biologically related can be created.

Last but not least, registration categories such as "dormant" and "evergreen" describe the daylily as it grows in the hybridizer's location only. They can be quite different to how the daylily grows in other locations with different conditions than those of the hybridizer's location.

What does that mean for your purchased seeds and winter. If you plant them outside I would do it as early in the year after winter as possible in your location (typically for the seeds of most plant species that is after the possibility of damaging frosts has passed). The later in the year that the seeds are planted directly outside the lower the percentage of seedlings that will survive their first winter - my prediction based on what happens with first year seedlings of other species.
For seeds that are given a head start by planting them inside I would use the same idea - that is, plant them outside when the danger of possible killing frosts is over. In this case I would wait until the danger of frost is past as much as possible unless you slowly acclimatize the seedlings to the outside environment over a period of several days, especially with very young, small seedlings.

@admmad

Maurice, I truly do not know how to thank you for your generosity in sharing your knowledge. Your post has helped me understand alot of the information I have read this past year.

I have read alot of older threads on this forum including those which you have been part of. Some of what you wrote in your post in this thread was familiar to me such as the environment of the parent plant , the environment the seed experiences while forming in the pod, foliage habit etc. I actually didn't plant any seeds outside because I remembered reading about needing to build up enough resources to survive the winter (being now August) but then I wondered about the environment the seedling experiences since the environment the seed came from was much warmer. Well I'll just say it lead to alot of questions. Essentially I had bits of knowledge/information yet didn't know how it all fit together. I don't have a biology background nor a genetics background, just an average gardener here.

Anyway, the information you provided pieced together all this information in a way I could understand. I also found it very interesting to read. So a big thank you. You have helped me out tremendously.

I do have one question, if I may, based upon the following statement in your post.

"One of the factors that may determine the fate of a seed is whether it is "dormant" or not."

How does this factor play a role? Just as a background I started seed from my garden last year indoors. First time, so I read alot here about growing seed and that some seed may be dormant and need cold moist stratification. That you can't tell seed dormancy by looking at the seed; nor based upon its parents; and in fact a pod may contain both evergreen and dormant seeds. Going back to nature and survival, a pod would drop seeds. The species would have a better chance of survival by dropping both seed that is not dormant and seed that is dormant. So if the seed that was not dormant sprouted, experienced cold (before it had enough resources) and died, the dormant seed which requires cold would live on and sprout at the appropriate time. [Feel free to correct me on any of this]

With all that in mind I was thinking, the heck with that, if a pod has both types of seed, dormant and not dormant, i would just keep the ones that sprouted quickly and toss the rest. Essentially breeding out seed dormancy by then continuing to cross my seedlings. I am only doing this as a hobby, for fun. I find it all so interesting. I start the seed indoors to try and shorten the time I have to wait to see it bloom. I know I could plant outside in the Fall and have it naturally experience the cold and sprout in the Spring but I guess I choose to complicate it all by starting indoors.

So my question is, if the seed is not dormant, would that have any effect on cold hardiness of the seedling? If so then would it be more or less a factor than everything else. Meaning if there are three factors favoring cold hardiness and one factor favor not, most of the seedlings would then have a descent chance of surviving the winter. Or of course you can flip it the other way towards a less likely survival. Do we know if any of these factors weigh more heavily than another? Would my chosing to proceed with only non dormant seed be a bad idea considering my location. I think our last frost date is end of May and first frost maybe October. I would have to check so dont hold me to that but essentially most of the year is not growing season.

As a side note, last year I crossed a Tet and dip. Tet being the pod parent. I mentioned it in a thread a while back about mixed ploidity which I think you responded to. (I don't expect you or anyone else to remember that. Seed was viable and one of the seedlings recently produced a scape. It's the funkiest think I ever saw.

I had to post that quickly and couldn't proof read as my first response disappeared halfway through with an error message appearing out of no where. Please excuse misspellings, grammar and let me know if it just doesn't make sense.

Anyway, this is the off topic, funky cross with the funky scape. Appeared this week. Front and back.

@Passionate4gardening Thank you for your kind words and I am glad my post was useful.
You wrote

So my question is, if the seed is not dormant, would that have any effect on cold hardiness of the seedling? If so then would it be more or less a factor than everything else. Meaning if there are three factors favoring cold hardiness and one factor favor not, most of the seedlings would then have a descent chance of surviving the winter. Or of course you can flip it the other way towards a less likely survival. Do we know if any of these factors weigh more heavily than another?

My answer is going to be both simple and complex - I do not think it is known whether seeds which have altered dormancy also may have altered cold hardiness. That is the easy part of my answer. The more complex part of my answer will take a little time as I will have to do some searching for what is known about the seeds of other plant species.

Would my chosing to proceed with only non dormant seed be a bad idea considering my location. I think our last frost date is end of May and first frost maybe October. I would have to check so dont hold me to that but essentially most of the year is not growing season.

The answer to this part of your questions is also I don't know and I suspect that there may be no research on any plant species that may provide an answer, but I will look.

Passionate4gardening
I wonder if your funky scapes is just going to grow a prolif at the tip, I just had one like that I harvested off of 'Heavenly Island Magic'.

@admmad, again much appreciation but please do not expend your time researching for an answer to my dormant seed question. Taking your time sharing your knowledge has been and is tremendously valuable in this thread as it has been reading through older threads.

My uneducated hypothesis is that if it requires cold to sprout then it may be reasonable to presume that the resulting plant will be cold tolerant/hardy. Whether seed that sprouts without the need of cold moist stratification has any effect on cold hardiness, it doesn't appear that the opposite, i.e. not cold hardy would necessarily follow. Not known in any event and that's OK. Also just want to note that I am not discounting the other factors which may come into play in determining cold hardiness that you set forth in your early post.

From the information you provided I have come to the conclusion that 1. Breeding out seed dormancy is probably not a good idea where it appears nature has provided it for the survival of the species and 2. It's good to mix in Southern genetics to what I'm growing here in the North. Also it's likely best not to start seed outside here is August given that the seedling will likely not have developed enough resources to survive the winter.

@Seedfork, thank you, I didn't even think of that. I have never seen a prolif in person. It is and will continue to be interesting to see what develops.

I think the purpose of moist stratification is misunderstood. It is not that dormant seeds need cold moist conditions in order to actually sprout. The purpose of cold moist stratification is to reduce the amount of time from first sprout to last sprout.
In other words some seeds sprout quickly, dormant seeds may take over two months to sprout. So if I plant seeds and have to keep them moist I would love for them all to sprout in a two to three week period so I don't have to continue to water them every few days for two or three months before they all sprout. The dormant seeds will sprout without cold moist treatment, it will just take them much longer to sprout.
So I like your thinking that if you do have some dormant seeds it really does not matter to you at all if they sprout much later or never, because many if not most of the seeds will not be dormant. You might have 20 seeds of one cross and only one or two might be dormant, I think it might be possible, but not likely, that all or the majority could be dormant. I have never been able to determine how many of my seeds were dormant, but I did some trials and moist cold stratification did reduce the period of time it took all the seeds together to sprout.
So I decided to put all my seeds in the fridge, mainly because I did not want to plant them in July, August, or early September. So I thought why not go ahead and store them and stratify them. I do feel that if I did plant the seeds as soon as they were collected that I would see no advantage to moist stratification. However if I plant the seeds in October would not want them to be two or three months in sprouting if I lived up north.

@ Seedfork Thank you Larry. I seem to have forgotten that in my equation.

Last year, my first year, I think I got everything mixed up. I dried them, stored in fridge for a month (I thought this was required), then cold moist stratified for a month, then took out and expected sprouting right away. I had read some here have seed sprout in the fridge during cold moist stratification, so I kept checking them. Mine did not. After a few days out of the fridge I got inpatient and planted in soil. I would say within a week I then had sprouts and most did sprout over the next two weeks with some stragglers.

So it seemed like a long process. (About mid September to around Thanksgiving too see sprouts). Frustrating because I wanted to get them growing as soon as possible so I had the best chance to see first year blooms here in the North. (Starting indoors). I have since realized that drying and putting in the fridge is just for seed storage. It is not needed prior to starting cold moist stratification. So yeah I ended up doubling the time for the seed starting process.

So I'm learning and still figuring things out. I appreciate everyone on this forum for their willingness to share their knowledge. It has been a tremendous help.

@Passionate4gardening Thank you for all the acorns.

Researching the answers to questions and problems helps me learn new things (although that does not necessarily mean that I will remember them for very long).

@admmad

As I'm just into my 4th year of backyard hybridization I thank all for the information. I cold stratify all my seeds and don't start indoor planting until January or February. If I may asked something that may be related to temperature affecting a plant of mine. Four years ago I purchased Undefinable (listed as evergreen) planted in the ground it didn't grow a great deal but did always produce a few blooms. Reading in this forum a member said they dig up their Undefinable and store it in an unheated garage. So I tried this last year late fall . The plant stayed green all winter and I brought it out after danger of heavy frost .The plant grew quite well however it didn't produce any flowering scapes . So my ? is did it require complete dormancy? Thanks you

Undefinable is a registered evergreen [born in FL] so dormancy should not be required to bloom.

Thanks Dave . Well I'm leaving it back in the ground this winter and see what happens next year .

Winter cold is not required for bloom in any daylily I have tested whether it was registered as "dormant", "semi-evergreen" or "evergreen". I have tested quite a few daylily cultivars including one that has been described as having to be put into a fridge to flower in warm winter locations and others that have been described as not flowering in Miami and others that have been described as no longer flowering because of climate warming.

That is different, in a way, from what happens if a daylily that is capable of becoming a certain type of dormant (endodormant) before winter is allowed to do so. That daylily may not sprout again for a very long time if it is kept warm but Stout found that they would sprout again without experiencing winter cold. I call those buds "stalled"; if my memory is correct Stout called them "repressed".

I have tested daylilies that have been left outside long enough so that they have become endodormant and then were brought inside. Those daylilies sprout very quickly inside but stop growing at about 1" high. They have stayed that way inside for at least six months.

Taking a leaf from evolution and the possibility that during all of prehistory, plants may have had to contend with times when the expected winter never happened, natural selection may have selected for plants to have alternative ways to grow and flower if winter should have, but did not occur. The simplest, most obvious possibility is for such a plant to sprout when it finally experiences a spring/summer environment. The differences between winter and spring/summer are that spring/summer has longer periods of daylight (longer days), higher temperatures and higher intensities of light.

Every endodormant daylily cultivar that I have tested by giving the stalled buds a few days of high intensity light (even though much lower than natural spring/summer sunlight), longer lengths of light (longer days - I gave them continuous light to account for the light intensity being nevertheless much lower than sunlight) and room temperature has sprouted and gone on to flower.

Thanks Maurice for that in depth answer. Inside the temperature never went below 40 F and though kept by a window here in SW Pennsylvania there is not very many sunny winter days .