Dave, has asked for a show of hands for all those who want to participate, so he can decide if this is going to be worth his trouble. So anyone who is lurking along, join in with a yes or even a no or even better a comment or suggestion.

Seedfork said:I am thinking just climate factors alone will greatly affect the bud count and branching but it would be interesting to see the difference. If it turns out after we get results from across the country on a few cultivars, that the counts are looking to be pretty much the same then I would be surprised, and I guess all this would be of little value. But if we see a trend for some plants to do better in certain areas then that would aid in determining if the plant would be good for our area. If we could get a good number of people to participate, and gain useful info, then I am sure adjustments could be made as needed.

Personally, I think it would be useful whether we find out that counts are the same or different in different areas. One outcome lets us know the bud/branching is stable across geographic locations, the other way would, as you said, let us know what areas are best for particular plants. (For instance, I know that Shirley Temple Curls is a pretty tender plant for our area and didn't bloom once in the years that the daylily garden I bought it from had it, but I'll bet it thrives in other places.)

Dennis616 said:Char’s concerns about data integrity are legitimate. People will have to be honest about their motivation and agree to only enter data with honorable intentions. Honor systems can be abused and will not be perfect, but they can and do work.
People will have to be honest about their ability to properly count branches and buds. If they are unsure they should not submit data.
A moderator could watch for and delete “suspicious” data like really odd counts, or counts from a new and unknown user.
The data would go to a "user growing report data" section and not to the official ATP specifications for the cultivar. After some time if enough good data is collected for a cultivar a moderator could decide to update the official ATP specs for the cultivar with the user data.

Because there are quite a few factors that dramatically affect plant performance, performance could vary greatly in the same state, or even same part of a state. So I am still not sure that geographic region (state) is enough. However, if you try to track more of the factors the entry form starts to get long:

You are entering branching and bud performance for hemerocallis cultivar “Cultivar Name”.
Please note the following before continuing:

• Data must only be entered for mature, established clumps.
• No second-hand data. All data must have been actually gathered and verified by you.
• Branching and bud counts must be made accurately and according to AHS guidelines.
• If you are unsure of the accuracy or correctness of your data do not submit it.

Growing season:

• Year

Geographic location where plant was grown:

• Country
• State/Province
• Region (Central, N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W, NW)

Sunlight exposure (select closest match):

• Shade
• Morning sun
• Afternoon sun
• Full day sun

Temperature conditions for the current year until the time data was collected:

• Number of cooling degree days: _______ (Possible resource for this http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/p...)
• Number of heating degree days: _______ (Possible resource for this http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/p... )

Average soil moisture conditions from natural and artificial watering (select condition that most closely matches what the plant generally experienced this growing season):

• Very dry
• Dry
• Moist
• Very moist
• Wet

General existing soil nutrient conditions (including amendments from previous years that provide long-term conditioning):

• Poor soil
• Average soil
• High-quality soil

Soil nutrient conditions from fertilizers/amendments this season:

• No fertilizers/amendments added
• Some fertilizers/amendments added
• Lots of fertilizers/amendments added

Branching Performance:

• Maximum branch count
• Average branch count
• Minimum branch count

Bud count performance:

• Maximum bud count
• Average bud count
• Minimum bud count

Comments


By clicking the submit button I declare that to the best of my knowledge and abilities the above data is true and accurate
Submit

 

So is this the actual survey?

@DogsNDaylilies I understand EXACTLY what you mean about your clay soil. EXACTLY. I am experiencing it this year myself for sure.

The moisture value is just an attempt to capture the overall general condition so if it varied wildly, yet you feel it actually was dry significantly more than wet you would say “dry”. And vice versa. If you feel like in the end it was close to 50/50 wet and dry you could just call it “moist”. An option might be to include a choice like “Uncertain”, or “Widely varying”. I think the important aspect is to capture when it was clearly mostly dry or clearly mostly wet to note the effect that has.

Your question “Do average branch counts really change that much based on all of those variables?” is absolutely the key question in my mind and I do not know the answer. However, I strongly suspect that it does, not for all but for a significant number of cultivars. Collecting this data may be the only way to find out! Like Larry says, he’d be surprised if the differences in climate across the country (and world) didn’t result in significant differences. I suspect sunlight/water/nutrients would also cause significant differences…

Becky, my form is not “official”. I put it together as a starting point or reference for how this data collection might work (and to illustrate what would be involved with collecting more data than just geographic location). It is certainly open to any and all changes, and it may not even be used at all…

I'd definitely participate. For my plants that I've had for years I'd say watering and fertilizer makes more of a difference in branching & bud count. I only really started watering & fertilizing on a fairly regular basis in the Fall of 2013. I can say that this year bud counts are higher & branching is much better on some cultivars. The weather each summer doesn't seem to matter much. Most of my plants are in partial shade and haven't been moved since I bought them.

Dennis, I say let's do it! I would be all for participating, but since I've only just purchased all of my daylilies this year, I don't have "established" plants yet. Some of them were purchased as clumps and might qualify next year, but I would have to leave that up to the more experienced daylily enthusiasts to let me know if that would be good enough.

...Although, considering most of my daylilies were separated from established clumps, it might be fair enough to take my bud/branch count this year, too. For instance, I just purchased Jungle Beauty (Dip) because it has stronger scapes than any other Dips I have and it's branch count was 5 on nearly every scape and, as a result, a high bud count. (That, and it's beautiful!) In my PlantStep software, I'm recording all of the bud counts I feel pretty confident of because they were taken from established clumps. If the experts thought that was good enough, I could participate this year.

DogsNDaylilies,
So what are we going to consider to be a mature clump that qualifies for a valid branch and bud count? How do we determine the age of the plant? I guess that would have to be the age of the plant in our own garden? If it comes from a mature clump from another garden or a mature clump from our own garden is there any difference? Won't we pretty much have to go by the date the fan was planted as a separate fan in our own garden? Thoughts anyone?

Larry and DogsNDaylilies, earlier this year I emailed a hybridizer I purchased from this spring and here is what he said about plants getting established:

"NO aspects of the plants will be "mature" the first year... like nearly all perennials, it's their second and (especially) third that will REALLY blow ya away!!! This is especially true for dl's that sport super-tall scapes, elaborate edged flowers, or outrageous branching. Some definitely re-bound much faster than others... "

So clearly year 1 is out, and to be cautious sounds like might want to wait until year three to say the clump is mature.

What I see in response to this thread .... is mostly newbies to Daylilies or folks who are recently acquiring plants. I don't see a consensus of folks on the daylily forum who have been growing daylilies for quite some time.

You might have to tree-mail folks directing them to this thread and asking for their input or vote.

I am hoping that there are quite a few just following along on the sidelines who are just waiting to see if this actually develops into anything. However I am concerned that more experienced people have not joined in, is that a sign they know something we newbies don't. Do they think we are beating a dead horse so to speak, I wonder? As Dave said he would need to see more interest in this before he puts forth all the effort and time to work on it if there is no more interest shown. I would really love to get some opinions one way or the other from seasoned, experienced growers.

Likely I will not have time to participate. So much of what we see with regard to branching and bud count directly relates to WATER, soil, genetics, and geography. I always use Melanie Masons admonitions regarding bud count :if you purchase from a zone south of you, subtract five buds for each zone north you live from where the plant originated. I haven't found that to work in reverse. When I purchase from north of here, I usually see the bud count similar to what the originator registered. Also with bud count,when instructing judges, I refer to bud placement rather than bud count!!! What is the point of having a high bud count if the cultivar is top branched or if the buds are so crowded that half of the blooms can't open properly? Also, some hybridizers will register cultivars with minimal bud count .(12-13) if the cultivar has a high proportion of scapes per fan. Often this means they observe instant rebloom scapes where they grow the plant. Just my two cents worth.

Julie. I think it would be very difficult to get accurate counts but on the other hand it would give us an idea on how differently a plant grows in different parts of the country and in different soils. That is a lot to fill out though and most people will not take the time to do it.

Hemlady, the form is not going to include everything that was shown in the example, we have pretty much agreed that was asking too much of people. The final form designed by Dave will be much simpler and should just take a few seconds to fill out for each plant. Thanks so much for the input and interest!

I think that such info would be very helpful to those who hybridize and sell daylilies as well. But I can also see many not having the time to answer more questions. Though if it is simple click to answer, I am sure that most would indeed do it!

Julie and Cindy - THANK YOU for taking the time to reply here! Very much appreciate your thoughts on the matter.

floota,
You have some good information there, the problem we see is that the bud counts and branching info is not available for so many plants that we(newbies) grow.We can't add or subtract from a figure we don't have. Yes water, soil, weather, etc. we all agree have an effect on bud count, branching and the general growth rate of the plant. We think gathering this information would give us a better understanding of how important each of those factors are, and a better general idea of how a prospective plant would do in our garden before buying it. Is region 90 per cent responsible for bud count and branching, or is water and fertilizer only 10 per cent responsible? Do we as newbies just not know this information, or has it just never been gathered? We don't know, but maybe more experienced gardeners do.
I know there might be a lot of apprehension about filling out the form, but really I enjoy being in my garden, I enjoy looking at the plants and seeing how they grow and trying to make observations on how to do better. I think anyone would have time to do bud counts of a few plants. Of course I realize that those that have hundreds of daylilies couldn't possibly fill out the form for all of them, but anyone could do two or three.

THIS information WOULD be very helpful to those who do sell daylilies. When you sell plants, you want a happy customer who will come back to buy again. Happy customers are gardeners who had success with their purchase.

Sometimes sellers do NOT know how well a particular plant will do for me where I live. So they leave it up to me to decide if I want to spend the money to find out. I usually don't order the plant in that case.

I also have a need to know which daylilies are hard dormants and which are soft dormants. Some listed as dormants WILL grow and thrive here. But I suspect they are the soft dormants. Example is Siloam Double Classic. I would NOT have purchased that plant if others here in FL had not told me that it does in fact do well in the south. It must be a soft dormant or perhaps even a semi-evergreen. If the creator/hybridizer lived up north when they grew and registered it ... how would they know?

What would be the best way to get the average bud count and branching counts? I am thinking that maybe saving the scapes and keeping track of them and recording a count as the scapes die off?
Anyone know the best way to do this over the entire growing season ?

As you cut off each scape, keep records of the branches and buds on each one. And then average that number per plant at the end of the season. That should work, right?

Dennis616
So the question is should our forms have a cut off as three years in your garden from the time it is actually planted as a separate fan (double fan). How about if you move an entire clump? I would think by removing the entire clump soil and all it would hardly affect the performance, am I correct on that? Anyone?
So I am good with the 3 years in your garden from the day planted on single or double fans. I actually agree with that wholeheartedly. It's just the established clumps that have me stumped.