Hi all, I was just thinking about the difference between dips and tets. To me dips are less prone to pests and disease, but this is just my third year in DLs world. What do you all think about this? I'm considering to add more dips in the future, but would like to have your opinions!

I prefer dips but mainly because they are a lot easier to hybridize with but I am in the minority on that. Most prefer tets because they are a sturdier plant and have more color saturation.

Cindy - Thanks for your input. I wondered what the main difference was when using either in hybridizing might be.

I saw some dip with very beautiful color and pattern, but I'm not an expert. In my garden I find tets more delicate. Dips have less problems. Maybe it's soil related too?

I do wonder about the "toughness" of dips. I've lost a couple of daylilies and they were tets. I've not lost any dips.

I have only three dips, I bought more tets three years ago when I decided to venture in DLs world, I didn't know much about them. But it seems that dips are stronger, leaves are always fine, no strange behaviour as I see in tets instead! The registered test I bought are not recent registration, I was short on money but this means they should be tried and true. I have this feeling, dips looks "smarter"

I do believe dips may be hardier. I can't recall ever losing any but have lost several tets to rot

Edit to add: Come to think of it, I did loose a couple of dips to winter loss, Elsie Spaulding, which was considered tender and Little Ana Rosa, both were evergreens I believe.

I started out with only tets except for my little dip mini bed, and for me the tets always seem to have thicker, sturdier scapes and such elaborate edges on the newer hybrids. But then I saw ROSE F. KENNEDY and I just had to expand my horizons and start buying dips -- such wonderful colors and color combinations! But I always seem to have to stake my dip scapes (I use those circle stakes) because they are so thin in comparison and tend to lean over and wave back and forth in a breeze. And in hybridizing, I only average about 4-6 seeds per pod on my tets -- but some of my dips will give me up to 35-40 seeds per pod!

So for me there are pros and cons to both, and I love 'em all!

Given the number of daylilies it would be hard to generalize, and it may depend on the pest and disease and the specific cultivar. Not all cultivars are necessarily equally resistant/susceptible to all pests and diseases. Although daylily rust would have originated on diploids because tets don't occur in nature, and the species in Asia still get it badly, there's been some suggestion that tets might, in general, be more resistant. On the other hand, in my garden more dips seem to get spring sickness than tets. Is that just because of the specific cultivars in my garden? I don't know and with so many thousands of different daylilies out there few of us have the same mix.

It's common for individual plant cultivars or species to differ in their resistance to various things, one might be resistant to a and c but not b, another might be resistant to c and b but not a, for example. As long as what you have is resistant to what occurs in your garden, that's what counts unless you are hybridizing and want to distribute plants elsewhere. Even then you can only test for what you have there unless you send them out for testing, same as southern hybridizers can't test for cold hardiness in their own gardens and northern hybridizers can't test for heat tolerance in their own gardens.

Well that was a long rambling response - can you tell I need an excuse not to get on with the housework

Thanks Sue and everyone!
What I see is sure limited here in my garden. Too many variables are involved, I'm just seeing my dips to grow better but this doesn't mean it's true somewhere else.

@sooby, I just opened another thread so you have a new excuse

Well, I thought about it and I have only lost 3 registered cultivars over the past 2 years: Raspberry Beret, Calgary Stampede, and Riot on the Kindergarten Bus. The last one listed is a dip. All 3 may have perished because I planted them too deep. All 3 died within 3 - 4 months after transplanting. So probably gardener error.

How can you tell by just looking at a Daylily if it's a Tet or a Dip?

Welcome Roseycats. You can't always tell. Some are cut and dry while others are not. Can you tell the dip here ?

I was just reading this article yesterday and ran across this post today, so here is an interesting link to a hybridizer growing Dips. that look like Tets.
http://icantbelieveitsadip.com...

Hey Mike- Is it the pink one in the middle?

Deryll they are all dips
Yazoo Elsie Hintson
My Cup Overflows
Seedling RFK X Faulkner sdlg

I wondered! I thought the middle one was, and knew the yellow one looked a little dippy too.

If the middle one is My Cup Overflows, it is more white rather than pink in real life, right?
I think it would be very nice in pale pink. I bought several newer releases in Tets with it
being the parent from the converted dip version. Can't wait to use them. Pete Harry has
his Cyclops in the Garden and it should be coming in a couple weeks. It is pink.

As for this topic, Dips have been an important part of Tet production with all of the conversions.
I had almost gotten out of the Dips until the Kaleidoscopes and a few others came out. Where
they are concerned, I think the patterns show up nicer on the Diploid version in the ones I have
seen, and I really like that. I am getting my first seedling out of the Tetra version of Rose Kennedy
and from what I have read, the Tets have surpassed the Diploid version with some of them having
thicker flowers with better substance that hold up in rainy conditions better than the Dip seedlings.

In my own garden, I will say that the dips seem to be a more rugged plant than the tets and will
often take more abuse and neglect- but for range of colors, I go for Tets more. I don't buy a lot of
heavily ruffled releases, but do have several, and you don't get them in Dips like you do in Tets.
For myself, I tend to judge equally, and grow both, because each have their own individual traits.
I agree with Mike that some are difficult to tell apart, but in others it is quite evident with some
experience. I think I grow about 10% dips.

Deryll, I agree on your assessment. MCO is more of a cream near white color. I have seen several MCO Tet offsprings lately. Gossard, Norris, Harry and others have intros or seedlings from it.

I prefer dips. in my garden as they seem to open in our very wet weather with cold nights better than tets and I just seem to find them more suited to the "English style" garden which goes for natural, simple shapes. I like tets but find the dips more 'graceful' somehow.

I am always surprised though when people comment on having to support scapes on dips. as we never have to do that here and we live in a very high exposed area with very strong winds. I also know of a grower on Bodmin Moor in Cornwall which is very bleak and exposed who also grows dips. and doesn't support her scapes, maybe it is specific varieties but there again we don't get tornadoes here so maybe your winds are stronger.

I have a dip registered spider that can't hold its own weight . All the other plants around it are fine.