Viewing post #892659 by kidfishing

Betja said: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.

I am not sure what may be different. We get very hot here and I go out in the morning and spread pollen every morning. It was 98 here today and I am fairly sure I set 90% of crosses I did this morning. It is rare that we have highs below mid 80's during our hybridizing season here. Much more common to be in the 90's and we set 20,000 seeds in these temps in the garden. I like to water to make sure the seeds are good quality as they are developing.