A couple years ago, Della, Rick and I were discussing all the good signs of fertilization, skyward stigmas, skyward pods, etc. Rick pointed out: 'what about pods that stay horizontal and appear to fill out good like upright pods?'. Something one doesn't see much of. Well, here's one cross I made last summer where the stigma went skyward overnight but the pod grew straight without turning skyward. It was nice and solid and looked very normal, otherwise. When I cracked the pod open, it was full of chaff--all chaff; normal size but no embryo.
So, by association, we can now say we have observed one good looking horizontal growing pod which did not produce good seed. If anyone sees a horizontal pod growing nest summer, make note of what the seed looks like. Let's see if we can build a correlation.
