JamesT said:
I suspect that the photo is of a group of plants that were all from TC, and illustrates the variability that can occur when daylilies are propagated that way. If that's the case, my position might be that none of them were the original cultivar, but that some of the plants resembled the original more than others.
Also note that the ones with washed out color in the back have washed out colors on the leaves as well... perhaps that's real... perhaps it's lighting. Honestly, I am not sure there has been enough research into all the pros and cons of TC on daylilies... when you culture a plant from a few cells things can go sideways... even stem cuttings on grapes for example can result in some variation... sports of many plants "appear" and the altered traits are often not passed on (not stable). So, are the shifts on color etc cause by micropropagation usually passed on, sometimes? most always? Almost never? Honest question... I have no idea. And would you notice in any practical sense considering that sexual reproduction scrambles things anyway? Is it possible that a cheap clone might not quite match the original but more or less faithfully pass the vast majority of important genes of the original? And if passed on 99.5% faithfully would it be such a bad thing to save 90% on the cost of the plant and have 99.5% of the genes to work with for hybridization purposes? And to the degree that cloning introduces clonal variations are they random? Or are you likely to see certain mutations over others? Meaning can we guess at the shifts we might be most likely to see? All interesting questions.
Now if cloning weakens the plant... that is a consideration... Using hormones to speed growth (BAP. etc) has also been accused of weakening the plants.... the question is does it always? Is there a safe way to do it? Lower doses of hormones? Longer recovery period? Would rapidly growing a set and then letting them grow natural divisions be a possible solution (that way any damaged clones could be culled).
I find the whole topic of cloning very interesting and by it's very nature it will be something that many hybridizers who are not interested in mass propagation will be dead set against... if their $300 cultivar becomes a more or less faithful $10 plant in 2 yrs most people will wait the 2 years to save $290.
In the hosta world you often see the term "original clone" ... meaning that it was a division of the original hybrid with no cloning at all... original clones command a higher price because of the possible unknowns surrounding micropropagation...
Anyway, when my life settles down some (in like 2 yrs), it's something i hope to play with!
