Knowing about inbreeding depression in Diploids, why and how would anyone develop a "line" of their own? Really not a goal of mine anyhow, just curious.

FYI, 'Gee Whizz' recently posted this on the Daylily Hybridizers 101 Facebook page, if there are any Forum members not on that, I thought the repost here could be helpful:
http://www.gracegardens.com/gg...
(toggle among the four hybridizing and additional award article through links at the bottom of each page)

@beenthere, these articles may partially answer your question. For myself, I am doing some inbreeding to identify recessive traits and to understand the inheritance patterns (dominant, co-dominant, recessive) of these target traits among my founder stock of registered daylilies I've purchased. I may get some lucky surprises, but mostly, I plan to then use that information to make decisions about seedling crosses and outcrossing. I defer to the real experts on the Forum for a more in-depth discussion!

Thanks Meghan for the link. I read that a few years back, but nice to see again. I can clearly see why you are inbreeding, and that's a good reason for it. But some, as you know, inbreed extensively to catch the breaks (mutations) with no regard for anything except the flower. Makes me nervous, especially with so many unk X unk in their lineup. I did ask to join the FB page, sounds interesting. Tina

beenthere said:But some, as you know, inbreed extensively to catch the breaks (mutations) with no regard for anything except the flower.

Actually, I'm looking at a number of traits that aren't at all related to the bloom, so I'll let you know how it goes! Check back in....ten years? LOL!

People like you are the future in Daylilies, I hope. That's the other thing, I just turned 60, so my goal is just to avoid as many genetic landmines laid by others, as possible, in my own hybridizing attempts. I'll leave the heavy lifting to folks like you. Good luck and Godspeed.

beenthere said:Knowing about inbreeding depression in Diploids, why and how would anyone develop a "line" of their own? Really not a goal of mine anyhow, just curious.

Traditionally, at least in daylilies, "a line" meant that the hybridizer tended to use mostly their own seedlings and cultivars when making crosses, as opposed to crossing cultivars from other breeders. It doesn't necessarily imply inbreeding.

Everyone starts out using other people's material, but as time goes on, the "keepers" become the parents for new generations. This is where unique characteristics can be blended into and from a group of plants that have been selected to the breeder's standards.

The time it takes to develop that "stable" is part of the ten years or so that people say it takes to become a "real hybridizer", someone who works mostly within their own lines. Most long-established hybridizers will use seedlings and cultivars from other breeders in order to work new attributes into their program, but it's not the majority of their work. Curt Hanson is a good example. In the very beginning he used a lot of Moldovan, Munson, Barrere and Brother Charles stock to establish his program, then later Kirchhoff, Morss, Salter and a few others, but as time passed, he amassed a collection of his own seedlings that were going in the directions he preferred. He hasn't registered many cultivars which were totally from outside his lines. The only example that comes to mind is Viagra Falls, which is Emmerich x Carpenter.

JamesT said:Traditionally, at least in daylilies, "a line" meant that the hybridizer tended to use mostly their own seedlings and cultivars when making crosses, as opposed to crossing cultivars from other breeders. It doesn't necessarily imply inbreeding.

When a hybridizer effectively closes their daylily breeding populations(s) to new plants from outside they are creating one or more lines but they are also inbreeding. The rate at which they are inbreeding depends on the number of individual plants in their breeding populations (their lines) and the genetic relationships of those plants. They cannot avoid inbreeding although they can minimize it by active design.
Minimizing inbreeding actively is not simple. Zoos, for example, do so because the breeding populations of many species in zoos worldwide are small. One of the reasons they formed Species Survival Plans was to maintain the genetic diversity of their captive populations. When breeding populations are closed and not massively large they slowly but surely lose their genetic variability.

I have often considered that new hybridizers seem to produce strong advances in daylily characteristics relatively early in their hybridizing careers. I attribute much of that to their use of daylilies from several different established hybridizer's lines and the heterozygote advantage that can occur when inbred lines are crossed. Each established hybridizer's lines slowly become inbred with the passing generations and when the new hybridizer crosses daylilies from different hybridizer's there is a chance for heterosis (heterozygote advantage).

megdavis said:FYI, 'Gee Whizz' recently posted this on the Daylily Hybridizers 101 Facebook page, if there are any Forum members not on that, I thought the repost here could be helpful:
http://www.gracegardens.com/gg...
(toggle among the four hybridizing and additional award article through links at the bottom of each page)

I enjoyed reading these articles. The last paragraph of the last article gives a great "recap" of what the whole thing is about.

Incase anyone didn't take the time to read through it yet...here is the last paragraph:

In this series of articles we have talked about selecting inexpensive plants for a typical beginning breeding program, freezing pollen, how the pollinating process works, collecting and storing seeds, planting seedlings, evaluating seedlings and a few ideas about using pollen. The field of hybridizing is not an exact science and further, what appeals to one person may not appeal to another. Find your own nitch, whatever appeals to you, and begin. I can safely say, that the real fun in growing daylilies is that morning walk though our own selected seedling beds. Every morning is like a trip to the maternity ward for our first born. There is no other heart stopping experience like being the very first person to see our own future Stout medal winner, the one your spouse or family fights to have named after them. Go for it!

Having bred a couple of litters of puppies, in a breed with a very limited gene pool, I'm kinda paranoid about inbreeding. Though I never ended up with a show puppy, they were all sane, sound and parents health tested to death. I got lucky. Now that I've fallen in love with patterned daylilies, I can see so many landmines. I've tried to buy stock that is from several different hybridizers, everything from spider to bagel with the hope that with attention, I will not add to that problem. But, then there are the unk X unk that I need to reduce bloom size. That makes me a bit nervous. At least the culled are not puppies. And there will, no doubt be plenty of culled, at least at first.

@beenthere
If you work with tetraploids the problem of inbreeding is very much reduced.

I'm going to buy a couple of Tets for Moms garden this summer. Will see what I think then. But I'm a big fan of Dips, for a lot of reasons. Really can't see me changing my mind.

@beenthere
OK, diploids do apparently, on average, have strong negative effects of inbreeding. In crosses that you consider are significant inbreeding you can alleviate the potential problems by producing many more seeds than usual and by culling more heavily for characteristics that are "closer" to "fitness". Those would be pod fertility [percentage of flowers that produce pods with seeds (when pollinated with fertile pollen)], average number of seeds in those pods); pollen fertility (percentage of flowers that set pods (of known to be fertile pod parents); rate of fan growth; rate of increase; winter hardiness; robustness (for example percentage of small fans that survive being transplanted or that survive their first winter, etc.).
It may require you to be more ruthless about the number of seedlings that end in the compost pile, but you should be able to select for fitter individuals even in crosses that on average produce less fit seedlings - as long as enough seedlings are grown.

Thanks for the advice, Maurice. Hopefully I'll have an actual seedling bed next year. But I really have no ambition beyond creating healthy plants with scapes that will hold on a 45 degree slope. That is my garden. Which is what motivated me to want to hybridize. So, I won't give up those things just to create a mind blowing patterned face. Hopefully I can add some icing (patterning) to the cake along the way. We shall see.

Interesting comments about inbreeding.
I have always felt that Stella de Oro was underutilized as gene pool.
I crossed her selfed.
Pollen and Pod parent were same bloom.
Even in breeding that close the offspring were all over as far as the following:
Height of blooms 6 inches down in foliage to 4' tall
Color the light yellow to golden yellow didn't surprise me. The various shades of red and some with eyes did.
Some showed 3 to 4 branches with 2 or 3 buds and the majority were 2 branches with 2 or 3 buds.
Probably the most disappointing was rebloom as out of 150 only 5 showed some rebloom.
Best out did Stella with 4 sets of scapes one right after another.
Plain orange color same shape and size as Stella.
Other 4 looked like and rebloom with time between rebloom and first bloom.
Five with rebloom were fast to increase.
All set seed pods like Stella.
With that much variety in offspring from selfed breeding I still feel there's no problem with more selfed for next matings.
Looking to stabilize traits not planting 1000 for a couple to register.
Here's picture of bloom from 3rd or 4th set of scapes.

Here's other program for branching and bud count.
Similar flowers but bred towards branching and bud count.
Stella selfed out of 150 seedlings 3 year old clumps.

Great photo, I have seen so many photos with different backgrounds, trying to show branching and buds, looks like solid white is the way to go.

@edgar

One of the catch-22s when hybridizing with 'Stella de Oro' is that it is often naturally pollinated by insects. So to be certain that the pollen put on the flowers by hand by the hybridizer is the actual pollen that sets the seeds insects have to be prevented from visiting the flowers. Sorry, have to use 'safe hybridizing techniques' as written about in the Daylily Journal when hand pollinating Stella.

'Stella de Oro' pollen on 'Stella de Oro' flowers is expected to only produce various shades of yellow flowered seedlings. According to known genetics it cannot produce red-flowered seedlings - those can only be produced by insect pollinations with pollen from red-flowered daylilies. It is also probably not possible to produce orange-flowered seedlings from hand pollinated self-pollinations that were protected from insect visits. Purple flowered and eyed seedlings are not genetically possible from self-pollinations of 'Stella de Oro' either - only from bee pollinations that beat or mixed with the hybridizer's hand pollinations.

I have crossed 'Stella' with other cultivars and the seedlings rebloom. I have read in the past that it is difficult to get seedlings from 'Stella' that rebloom but I have not had that problem - as long as the seedlings are grown well.

"Purple flowered and eyed seedlings are not genetically possible from self-pollinations of 'Stella de Oro' either - only from bee pollinations that beat or mixed with the hybridizer's hand pollinations."

I was surprised to see that 'Stella de Oro' actually has a non-self in its background, 'Pinocchio', a parent of 'Bitsy'. Although registration data doesn't give Stella's parentage, 'Bitsy' is listed as a parent of 'Stella de Oro' in the Griesbach article on 'Chesapeake Belle':

sooby said:"I was surprised to see that 'Stella de Oro' actually has a non-self in its background, 'Pinocchio', a parent of 'Bitsy'. Although registration data doesn't give Stella's parentage, 'Bitsy' is listed as a parent of 'Stella de Oro' in the Griesbach article on 'Chesapeake Belle'

'Pinocchio' would need to be heterozygous for the gene(s) necessary for its eyezone to be visibly pigmented and be able to produce seedlings that lacked anthocyanin pigments in their flowers.

The "x-factor" when breeding with Stella de Oro is the source material.

Stella sets pods easily, and in my experience, the seedlings tend to bear a strong resemblance to Stella. If the nursery stock is not deadheaded, these seedlings will grow within the clumps, and will likely be sold as Stella.

Stella has been massively distributed and tissue cultured, (often by indiscriminating sellers who have no particular interest in daylilies) making it difficult to determine whether or not the plants sold are the true cultivar. The name Stella De Oro has practically become a generic term for "yellow reblooming daylily" in the nursery trade, the horticultural equivalent of "Q-Tip" or "Kleenex".

My own clumps of Stella pre-date tissue culture, and the flowers appear to be true-to-type, but I would hesitate to pull a random fan and bet on it in a DNA test against a known, true sample.

By way of example, the database here contains several images which are highly suspect.

@sooby Where was that Griesbach article printed?