This was copied and modified from an earlier thread. I would like to say a few words about seedling selection and what I look for in choosing a daylily for possible registration. First thing that draws a person to a daylily is the bloom and I'm no exception, but we must look at the whole plant from the ground up. The second thing is it must rebloom, I make my selections on rebloom. The third thing I look at and the most important to me is the scape. It must have good branching and bud count, at least four branches and 18-20 buds minimum. "The exception to registering a flower with less buds is registering it as a hybridizers flower because of a desirable trait it carries to its babies." The last thing is the foliage, this is what will be seen most of the year. I really don't think I have ever seen a registered daylily that had unsightly foliage.
I plant about about 2000 seedlings per year and on a good year will move about 50-60 to the hybridizing area to watch them a second year and make sure they are pod and pollen fertile, I would never register a pollen sterile daylily. This second year is when I really watch the scape for branching, bud count, height, and bloom size. From this 50-60 I may keep a dozen to watch a third year and from that 12 I may register half or less of the them the forth year after lining them out several times to make sure they don't die when moving them. So from 2000 seedlings I may end up with 6 that I think are exceptional. The ones I sell on the auction have some trait I don't care for, some will turn out to be nice daylilies because they are only 18 months old when I select them to put on the auction. Several people have registered my seedlings so I have let some good ones get out of here. The other 99% are composted. If you are still with me I will start with three that I will have kept four years this fall and have lots of each, but will not register. This first one want make it because of the color, it's from my white uf breeding, It's a sib to LILLIAN'S VAPOR TRAIL, I don't want something thats so far off color from the two that I will register.
This one has everything right at the top and there are way to many green ufs already.
This is a sib to LILLIAN'S CLOCKWORK ORANGE, I like the face of this flower but the branching and bud count are low, the scape is about 40" tall which would be fine if it were a large uf.
So out of the 2000 seedlings I planted four years ago I will register four of them. Two dips and two tets. It's seems I should be doing more dips because I only plant about 10% dip seed and register as many dips as tets. I did make a few more dip seed than normal this year.
This one has everything right at the top and there are way to many green ufs already.
This is a sib to LILLIAN'S CLOCKWORK ORANGE, I like the face of this flower but the branching and bud count are low, the scape is about 40" tall which would be fine if it were a large uf.
