I have been reading through old posts and it seems a lot of people use overhead irrigation in their gardens. How do you all manage this when trying to set pods? Is there a time of day when it is better to water (late evening?) or do you just alternate and not try to set on days when watering?

Finally, is there anything you would have changed in the setup of your garden?

We overhead water and it's usually mid day or later in the afternoon during hybridizing. Keep in mind we are usually finished pollinating by 9 or 9:30. We have watered about an hour after pollinating without it affecting anything. I will even pollinate on rainy days if its just sprinkling or a light drizzle; I find they tend to actually take better when we do that (I suppose the sun not being out). I'm not sure how long it takes for pollen to get to where it needs to or started on its way.

That's interesting because I had terrible luck this year on days that it rained even if it was hours after I pollinated. Of course that rain was in the form of thunderstorms...

I will have to keep this in mind because I erred on the side of not watering as much for fear of messing up the pollination that I had some buds abort.

We water every day and the only time I don't water is when I spray chemicals; I wait 24 hours after I spray to water. I would think that not watering enough would affect a pod set or maybe the pod aborting since the plant would be trying to conserve energy.

That's exactly what I am thinking. I was living in a fools paradise thinking the storms were watering enough!

We water even when it rains because if it's not a nice, long rain then the ground just doesn't get saturated enough.

Not sure which of the smilies is "embarrassed fool"

This blows my mind because I went back and looked through my notes and nothing I pollinated when it rained took, so they must have been dryer than I though. Oh well. Lesson learned!

Thanks for sharing your knowledge again Michele!

They may not have taken just because they didn't want to. It may not have been the watering or lack of.

I had plenty (on what blooms I did have) that did not take. On my TET spiders/UFs I only got 5 pods from around 30 plants with hundreds of blooms. I have some that set pods on every bloom last year but NOT this year. I actually had quite a few pods but most of them aborted for some reason this year. I don't know if it was the pollen I used ( I was using several Tet conversions) or just the freaky season. I do know that I usually lose most of my first scape pods and I have to rely on rebloom scapes. One hybridizer had said that he has seen this and it's because the plant is putting its energy into sending up rebloom scapes and not the pods so they abort.

I can have 2 clumps of the same plant, one will set every bloom and the other won't set a thing. The plants have a mind of their own and don't care what we want

I have a bumper crop of seed this year. Our rain was averaging over 2" per week so I am sure that helped. I had a couple of plants, Startle, and Destination Street set pods this year. In the 5 plus years I have had them, I never set a pod of either. This year I got 2 pods from Startle and about 6 from Destination Street.

Michele, you wrote We water. Who all makes up this plural pronoun?

Gerry

profesora said:Michele, you wrote We water. Who all makes up this plural pronoun?

Gerry

That would be me, my best friend Kim who also hybridizes, and James Hall whom allows us to share his property for our daylilies. When I had to move unexpectedly 2 years ago I really had no place to grow my daylilies, it was getting quite awkward at my ex-fiancés home to go take care of my plants daily, so James Hall asked if I wanted to use his place. He needed help with doing things like weeding, washing plants for shipping, building more bed, etc., etc. so in exchange for part of his garden space Kim and I help him out. He also supplies all the fertilizer, other chemicals, and anything else that goes with the territory of this hobby/business.

This interesting arrangement benefits all members, and all three of you are very fortunate and giving.

Thank you for sharing.