chalyse said:Looking back at my records for the last two years, I've done a handful of diploid self-crosses that yielded about 10-30% pods that led to viable seeds-to-seedlings, depending on cultivar (and your mileage may vary, according to many variables). A pretty good rate for something that is not supposed to happen, I think.
Unfortunately, unless you used safe hybridizing techniques it is quite possible that few of the self-pollinations that were successful were only self-pollinations. Daylilies do naturally cross-pollinate. How easily they cross-pollinate depends on the cultivar. For example, 'Stella de Oro' is naturally pollinated easily. 'Ophir' is naturally pollinated easily as is 'Tetrina's Daughter', etc. Natural cross-pollinations are done by bees, flies, earwigs, moths, butterflies, etc. Most of the Ophir natural pollinations in my garden are self-pollinations - they abort. Most of the Tetrina's Daughter natural pollinations are self-pollinations - they abort. I would expect that Stella natural pollinations are a mixture of self and cross pollinations with cross pollinations in the majority.
If you used safe hybridizing techniques - the bud is forced open before it starts to open by itself and is pollinated with pollen that could not have been itself contaminated by insect visits; it is then closed and wrapped in something (such as a paper bag) that prevents insects from entering - then the success rates could be attributable to self-pollinations. Otherwise they are open to debate as to whether they were due to hybridizer self-pollinations or natural cross-pollinations. On the other hand, the successes could be with specific diploid cultivars that can be reasonably assumed to be self-compatible such as those having
H. minor in their ancestry or
H. lilioasphodelus, etc.,
Although little is impossible where genetics and living organisms are involved, due to the random nature of the mechanisms for making sectors it is unlikely that 50:50 colour splits could be stabilized. Genetically, it is relatively common to get random sectoring to be passed on to offspring.
