Hi, this is a photo of a seed pod that came from one of my crosses. It appears to have lost one full globe (if thats the right term) tw others seem fine.

Has anyone seen this before, normal, not normal? Maybe an insect??

Any thoughts/advice appreciated

Probably some insect damage, I find some of those. I just let the pod ripen and crack then harvest it. Normally the other sections will be fine.

I agree with Larry, Alistair. It happens. I call them blow outs. Occasionally when one goes, more will follow. If they don't, the sections that are left seem to produce viable seeds.

Thanks Larry and Tim. Recently retired I'm a little new to this. This year was my first to have seedlings bloom. I'm now totally hooked. Here's my favourite three seedlings of 23

I have a similar one. I am glad you started this thread.

Here, grasshoppers chew on pods and start the damage. On others, OGK. [Up North, the pods just disappear [🦌]]. Agree the rest of the pod seeds can be viable.

I consider that those sections of the pod that shrivel and blacken have either no seeds in them or only one.
After the flower is successfully pollinated the pod starts to develop. However, even though the pollination was successful it does not necessarily mean that seeds will develop successfully. The pollination may start development of the pod but development may then fail at later stages, such as fertilization of the ovules. Development of the seeds does not necessarily happen in all three chambers of the pod.

Perhaps those chambers don't have viable seeds. Based on observation, I hypothesize that the external integrity of the pod might follow the presence or absence of viable seeds within the chambers of the pod, especially when the weather is hot and dry.- sort of a micro-level manifestation of the principle that plant resources follow the hormones in support of viable seeds. Often the scape stays green if (and as long as) it has viable pods to support, and similarly the parts of a pod that house viable seeds are less likely to dry and shrivel.

My weather has not been dry at all this year.

But I am seeing this, also. More often than I would like (this year is also terrible for blooms with missing pistils altogether).

The pistil is usually divided into 3 tubules (sometimes they come apart and you can see clearly). So, if only 2 tubules get pollen the 3rd chamber will be empty.

Also, it may be a coincidence but the other day I saw a slug on my collapsed chamber. Was this his feeding ground? Or did he show up after the fact, attracted by the rotting section?

I fear this year will not be a bumper seed crop for one reason or another.

The daylily pistil is formed from three carpels that fuse very early in the development of the pistil. However, there is just one open channel in the centre of the pistil for most of its length until it is close to the ovary. Nevertheless, pollen tubes that grow down through the channel may be guided into any of the three different sections of the ovary and some sections may not receive good pollen or something else may happen to cause the ovules in a section to not develop or to abort later. The diagram below shows the open channel in the pistil (based on Pollen-tube behavior in Hemerocallis with special reference to incompatibilities by Stout and Chandler, Plate 23 figures 5, 6 & 7).

@Maurice
I had never heard about there only being one open channel in the pistil or seen it illustrated that way. I have just gotten into the habit of skipping split pistils when spreading pollen. But if there is just one open channel wouldn't that mean that any section of the three split sections of the carpel would lead to the one central channel and the pollination should still have a good chance of being successful? Maybe it is a different problem than just being a split pistil, often one section of the pistil is very short, one section a little longer and one section looks full length. When I have tried putting pollen on on three even, I had little success. Is there something taking place when the pistil splits that might cause a blockage of the one open central channel?
Edited to change carpels to pistils.

Seedfork said: @Maurice
I had never heard about there only being one open channel in the pistil or seen it illustrated that way.

I took this picture some years ago, cutting across the perianth tube to show the hollow style. I don't know what happens when the three parts are not fused into one.

@Seedfork If we could rely on the split pistils being as normal as possible then each pistil would have its own open channel that would lead to its own ovary. In that case, pollinating each of the three separate pistils should produce viable seeds in each of the three sections of the pod.
On the other extreme, since the split pistils are an abnormality it may be that they do not have open channels or perhaps not all three have open channels. Or there may be other abnormalities closer to or in the ovaries. So pollinating the split pistils may not be successful.
I'm sorry but I do not have an answer. I do not know if anyone has collected information about the success rate for pollinating split pistils versus pollinating normal pistils for the same cultivars. I do not know if anyone has checked whether
split pistils have normal open channels or whether there might be other problems when the pistils are split that would also affect pollination.