I am wanting to take the exhibition judges class,but looking at the point scoring guidelines, the first category is color faults: Not true to cultivar, murky, dingy, streaked , dull, faded, irregular markings.
Not exactly sure of the application of the terms murky and dingy to daylily blooms first off. Then streaked and irregular markings would really hurt the new trend of broken color blooms. I just read last night that being true to cultivar does not prevent a fault from being a fault. So should those terms be better defined? Surely a few years ago broken colors would have been seen as terrible faults.
So how is this situation being handled by judges in shows now?
I am sure I will have more questions as I go though the guidelines, hopefully I will get answers that will help me pass the test. I thought this forum would be a good place to help cement in my memory all the rules. My mind often works in a too literal manner, and I have to be walked though with explanations of simple things before I can get the more complex things straight.

I thought there would be several responses to this by now! I had a long one written out last night, but decided not to post it because I am not a judge. I will say this though-

I am out in the sun a lot, and when I look at my T-shirts comparing the inside color to the outside color, the outside is always dingy and faded. My navy blues get a silver sheen, and my blacks tend to gradually turn towards grey. I think daylilies can be the same way. Too much shade and they can be pale or murky. Too much sun can cause some to bleach out quite a bit making them dull and faded.

I think your description for streaks refers to those that are not supposed to have them. Damage from thrips or a fault from a crack can cause those. Just a small light spot from a drop of water or even pollen will be points off. The darker colors are notoriously bad for white spots or streaks.

A lot of broken colors will often have a solid color bloom that is not streaked. Those are part of the plant, but not the typical form it was registered for, so the solid blooms would be "off type". Flowers of say Pink Stripes might have very pale stripes that are almost undetectable if they are grown in the wrong places. That would be points off. With broken colors, I think the lack of streaks or color spots would be points off. The same for patterns. When two people are showing Undefinable, the one with fewer streaks or spots will get the lesser score.

A good many toothy blooms have teeth based on temperatures. When you are showing those, they need to show the teeth or that is considered off type. A poly bloom of something that is not supposed to be poly is off type.

I have seen where six people were showing say Neon Flamingo. Some of the blooms are the deep pink they are supposed to be, but others are quite noticeably pale. I have seen photos of say Sharyn Lianne where it is a totally different shade depending on temperatures. While those deeper shades might be very attractive, they are not typical for the registration.

I sure hope I got that right!!!

I think you make perfect sense, Deryll. I was thinking too that if a daylily is not registered with streaks, then it would be considered a fault for that daylily.

Color is so variable that I can see why that would be difficult to judge. I know nothing about the judging process, but when judging, I would think a judge would have the AHS database at hand to compare color, but some of those pics are not the hybridizer's pictures on some older ones. Would love to hear more about that.

Judges can have phones or computers available to help with stats, but color is not to be judged based on those (because of the differences in displays).

One factor I didn't realize until judging actual exhibitions is that many shows have a lack of natural light in the room where exhibitions are judged. You're often judging under almost all artificial light and boy does that affect the color. One show I've judged at for many years is always held in a fairly dark room with only one small area of natural light in the entire room. Another show I've frequently judged has one wall of windows, which makes a huge difference. Sometimes the color was so off in the darker room that I ( when chairing a panel) would ask a clerk to carry a particular exhibit over to the door area so our Panel could view it in natural light. When you're on a panel, you learn quickly that you need to judge and move on because sometimes your panel has to judge 3-4 sections and you can't dawdle over one exhibit . You start with a perfect score of 100 and deduct points or fractions of points for faults and your panel will ask the clerk to turn the exhibit around or tilt it so judges can better see it. ( judges may not touch any exhibit.) I will often ask if I'm not familiar with a cultivar if another judge on the panel is. It's helpful when at least one judge has seen a cultivar before and can verify if the color, scape height, bloom size, etc, are typical for the cultivar when something might seem off. Each panel I've judged on has been so educational, as you learn a lot from being around other judges.

I would love it if there were a video of a Panel of judges going through a exhibition show. A video would allow the comments between the panel and the actual visual of the faults discussed, a real show would be fantastic (probably not possible) but even a mock show just for the video would be very educational.