Seedfork said:Am I correct in understanding that the big time daylily breeders will have thousands of seedlings in a year? If so the odds to me look pretty slim for a hundred plants, of course the one time ticket buyer sometimes wins the lottery. 
Yes they have thousands of seedlings (Floyd Cove 70,000, Nicole 14,000, Trimmer used to do 10,000 or more but cut way back some time ago). I have read that some hybridizers (not the big ones) who used to do 5000-10,000 cut back to 500 or so and still got as many keepers as they did with the larger number. When you cut back to a small number you are more selective on what you use/cross and can still get as many keepers.
Even some of the bigger hybridizers buy seed on the auction. I have seen Nicole, Bonibrae, Stamile to name a few buy seed from the auction. Jamie Gossard bought 5 seeds on the auction from Bob Faulkner several years ago (for more than $200) and he got 2 introductions from them. I only do about 500-800 for myself and Kim does about the same and I have plenty of possible intros. No I'll never be able to have 15-30 intros per year like some put out but that ok with me.
