Thanks so much for the great topic! We can never learn too much!
In tets my best seed setters this year were these. Because we've had extended periods of extremely high heat they've really shown what they can do.
Whale Tails
Wishy Washy
Jerry Pate Williams - see pic below
Gale, you asked if you can put too many pods on a plant. Yes. You can set a plant back or even kill it with too many pods. If a plant is proven to be very vigorous, like JPW above I feel safe in doing lots of pods. If it's small or doesn't multiply well I would not.
DancingGenes, you mentioned temps when hybridizing. I was in KY last week and spent the afternoon with David Kirchhoff and Mort Morss. I asked them specifically about temps and they said 90* was about the cut off for setting pods. Personally, I like to do my crosses before temps reach 80* to beat the stomatic fluid coming out but even when I do that if the temps are much above 90 my crosses don't seem to take.
You should be able to tell if your crosses are successful within about 4 days of making them. In the pic below you will see very young pods set on Little Damsel. The green one to the right is about a week old. The one with the pistil still attached and still covered in the old bloom tissue is 3-4 days old and the one on the far left is about a day older than that. The swelling around the ovary tells you that a pod has been started forming. The 2nd pic shows some young pods on Freaky Good. See where a bloom to the right has been dead headed 2-3 days before? It has no swelling at the base. The cross didn't take on it.
Sometimes a pod will abort. This can be caused by heat, not enough water or various other reasons. Sometimes they just do. If you're doing what you can to keep the culture of your plants in good shape don't worry about it.
In case you haven't seen one, here's the pod from a polymerous bloom. Pods have the same number of chambers are there are sets of tepals (petals and sepals) on the bloom. If you have a 5x5 bloom, you will have a 5 chambered pod. The bloom shown with this pic would produce a four chambered pod.
Sabrina, congratulations on your crosses. How long will you have to wait to see them bloom?
