I'm very impressed with all these seedlings, folks -- I just with mine were half as good!
Leslie, I think it was Michele (Tink3472) who advised me that if the temp goes over the mid-80's crosses usually won't take. And I've certainly noticed a big increase in pods since I started paying attention to the temps. The really unfortunate thing is that since last year our temps have been quite a bit higher than they used to be in the late spring and early summer. My solution is to pot everything up that I want to use as pod parents, and then I move the pots inside the house for 2 days if the temp is going to go above 86, and it seems like about half of the crosses take that way. But I can only accommodate about 30 pots max indoors, so I have to make some hard choices at times. And I have succeeded in getting some crosses to take outdoors under a big umbrella up to about 90 degrees. This spring I had to move pots indoors starting in early May -- bummer!
I always go by what the high temperature is going to be that day, not what the temp is in the morning when I apply the pollen, and that does seem to have made a difference.
