DogsNDaylilies said: (I started the somewhat unsuccessful experiment because I'm very curious to test the theory I have read multiple times that children plants tend to take after their pod parent in terms of plant characteristics.)
I have written about that traditional belief several times, including in an article in the Daylily Journal. There is no evidence that any characteristic (except possibly some instances of green/non-green variegation) is determined differently by either parent - that is, the characteristics of children plants are equally determined by both parents.
Testing the possibility is quite complex if we want to be scientific and objective. An important part of the test is the objectivity of the person doing the test. Unfortunately, it is quite difficult to be objective and there are many instances of subconscious lack of objectivity (bias) particularly with this belief.
The important step then is that the characteristics of the seedlings and parents must be measured (observed) in a blind manner. The person doing the observations must not know the identity of the plants being measured or what the pod parents and pollen parents are of the seedlings being measured.
The second problem is that if one does cross cultivar A x cultivar B to produce seedlings AB and the cross B x A to produce seedlings BA one must then plant the seeds. One cannot choose which seeds are planted (so one cannot choose the largest seeds or the hardest seeds, etc.) one must choose seeds at random from each cross to plant. One cannot choose which seedlings are kept (one cannot choose the largest seedlings or the greenest or the most vigorous, etc). One must choose seedlings at random from each cross.
The next problem is that usually one plants the seedlings from cross AB in one location and the seedlings from the cross BA in another location. Unfortunately, it is known that locations are different no matter how much we think they are the same. So planting the seedlings from the two crosses in two different locations is not appropriate (Even if those two locations are rows side by side.) The objective method around this problem is to divide the seedlings from each cross into several groups (say three) randomly of equal size and to choose three different locations to plant. In each location one might have two rows side by side. In each location one would choose which cross would be planted in row 1 at random. The end result would be that there would be three locations - in location one, row one might be BA and row two would be AB. In location two row one might be AB and row two would be BA and in location three row one might be AB and row two would be BA. Which rows are which cross would depend on random chance. The measurements of the seedlings from each location would need to be kept separate.
After the observations are made (by a person who did not know the identities of the seedlings) they would need to be analyzed statistically - so there would need to be enough seedlings to do reasonably valid tests (say at least five of each cross in each location - so a total of at least 15 seedlings of each cross). And to make the results more general one would need to do a number of different reciprocal crosses using different parents.
