kousa said:Thanks Ken! I will try some of those techniques out. So strange that shade plays such a significant role in pollination and pod formation.
One theory would be that anything that makes the plant more relaxed and comfortable overall frees up energy for reproduction. You see this in many organisms. What I think is interesting is how on one hand, comfort can encourage seed-setting, but stress, in the form of aggressive division, can also enhance it. I always thought of seed production as a response to a hostile situation, such as dandelions in a lawn which flower copiously on 2" stems as a response to mowing.
I might have been looking at shade all wrong. It could be that a daylily senses a shady situation as one which is ultimately fatal, (shade in nature means tree roots, less water, weaker growth) and it produces seed in an attempt to make its way to better light, in steps of 24"-30" which might take several years each.
I have gotten some strange cases with tets. I dabbed the pollen and a pod formed but the pod became misshapen. Like instead of having 3 compartments of the seed cavities developed, only one was plump and the other two just flattened. When this pod opened, the one plump compartment had only one seed and the other two had no seeds.
I get quite a few of these too. I always chalked them up to chance, but I also feel lucky that one seed managed to hang in there. I think a one-seed pod has a good chance to abort completely, much like a scape with only one pod will tend to dry up before the pod can mature. This is more common with certain cultivars.
