I have two people that have done conversions for me, I do not do any myself. I am hoping Michele will start learning to do it, we have talked about how good she would be at doing it but so far she hasn't agreed.
The death rate is pretty high, so when I want something converted I have plenty of it because the chances are slim that I will see them again. Three years before LILLIAN'S VAPOR TRAIL was registered I took three pots to have treated, all three (two fans in each pot) died. Last year I did the same and all lived so I will know this coming bloom season if any are converted by having the pollen checked under a microscope. Tet pollen is larger than dip.
Also another problem with conversions, they are really bad about getting crown rot. I did not know this until last year when I went to pick up LVT and the person that does this for me mentioned it. Well I had taken him some pollen from FRED MANNING Temple 2005 to check and it was a full Tet I had converted a couple years ago, I had set seed with it last year so I knew it had some tet pollen, plus the blooms were totally different from the dip. I devided it about a month ago and all four fans died from crown rot.
Today a lot of the big guys are doing dips again just to get something worth converting to get that gene pool into there tet program. Dips will always be the backbone of daylilies, they were here first and will always be here no matter how we abuse them.
