Yes, I know: one should only cross diploids to diploids and tetraploids to tetraploids. It's not 'supposed' to work when you mix the ploidies.

Except that, accidentally (in 2020) I used pollen from a poly bloom of Daddy's Heart (tetraploid) to pollinate Beautiful Edgings (diploid). And no, I made no mistake in the tagging of the pod for the cross, I tagged it when I made the cross and kept the tag with the pod throughout.

Daddy's Heart poly (tetraploid)

Beautiful Edgings (diploid)

Because of the polymerous blooms on Daddy's Heart (there were two of them at the time, end of July 2020) I really wanted to try crossing the poly with something ... neglected to check the ploidy, and pollinated Beautiful Edgings, tagged the plant and waited to see... and the pod formed, with quite a few seeds. (I got twenty seeds in the pod that developed.)

I started the seeds in my indoor grow room in November of 2020 and 50% of the seeds produced seedlings... two of which subsequently failed. But I planted (8) seedlings from the cross into my gardens this past year, in the spring of 2020. And they all grew well last summer.

So: waiting to see how they handle our zone 3 winters, see how many are still in the garden in spring of 2022. Question: what is the ploidy of the mixed-cross seedlings? (And how do I determine that?)

Thank you!

Dianne

Sorry, planted the seedlings in Spring of 2021. (Did a preview before posting and 'STILL" put the wrong year!

I have at least one or more of those it seems every year. At first I just shrugged it off as being my mistake, but then there were times I really had confidence in my records and began to realize that it was not just a mistake all the time(I do make some occasionally)
So this year if I find some of those I want to make a record of them, and do more crosses.

You can cross the seedlings with known dips and tets and see which ones "take", if any, as a start.

One thing you have to rule out is insects. If an insect transferred some pollen to the flower that you hand-pollinated and the insect's was from the right ploidy then that may be what fertilized the seeds and not the chosen pollen. To be sure you would have to take steps to avoid insects getting to the flower as well as you.

sooby,
I had not thought of that, and that is a possibility. I do not take the necessary precautions to prevent that from happening. I will also find that a good excuse for the dog seedlings I produce.

I've followed the notes (and also interviews) by some of the well-known hybridizers ... Garden Gate magazine has done several that are available on YouTube, for example. And several sources have stated that, 'once the pistil has been pollinated, it closes and will not accept pollen again' - ?

And several extensive articles relating to daylily hybridizing have noted that 'generally speaking' or 'with some exceptions' you cannot mix ploidies. But those suspicious little qualifiers leave the door open to the possibility of successful crosses between the two ploidies ... as does the statement that the pistil 'closes' and will not accept the pollen. It would be interesting to learn how long that window of opportunity might be...?

I can honestly say, when I crossed the two, there was every indication that the pistil was pristine - I look at various blooms carefully and reject any that look 'altered', crooked or bent, discoloured, etc. Can't say that that rules out an insect (maybe) got there first, but I will have to do some more reading to see if I can ID past instances when such crosses apparently actually 'took'.

But still - what would that make the ploidy on the cross?

Appreciate the suggestions and interest, thank you!

I guess you would have to cross them with a dip and tet and see which one takes. I can get them to make pods if mixed, but never have gotten good seeds.

adknative said:
I can honestly say, when I crossed the two, there was every indication that the pistil was pristine - I look at various blooms carefully and reject any that look 'altered', crooked or bent, discoloured, etc.

I am unfamiliar with the shape of the pistil being important to hybridization. Is that a thing?
Just that this past year I specifically loved a first-year seedling I have where every single bloom had a different shaped pistil (this is a main reason I love this seedling - I even garden-named it 'pigtails' because of this). They were all of them highly receptive to whatever pollen of the correct ploidy I placed upon them, their kinked shapes having nothing to do with fertility. I have a ton of seeds in the fridge from them.
Here are some pics to show you what I mean:
https://garden.org/lists/item/...

On the other side of the coin another new seedling I have accepted pollen from both a tet and a dip, and made buds (I was testing the ploidy of the seedling). I witnessed those flowers open in real time (evening openers) so was there standing ready with the pollen as they opened to get to the pistil ASAP. After a few weeks the tet bud died off, but I was shocked it would take so long as that to abort. Not very energy-efficient. The dip pod had only 1 seed so I decided to grow it for fun, although mamma flower is ugly.
I guess weird things do happen sometimes.

I decided to cross Forsysth Flying Dragon with Kent's Favorite Two. I love the color and steadfastness of Kent; I like the larger size of FFD and it too is color fast. Did the cross pretty early. They took and it is now heading into its second year. Then I realized that they are mixed ploids. Looking forward to see what happens.

Yes, as a number of us have discovered: mixed ploidies can produce seeds and seedlings (we are not necessarily poor record keepers or beaten out by the bees).

Interesting (brief) article regarding mixed ploidy crosses ...

https://plantploidy.com/Daylil...

As to twisted or 'bent' pistils... sometimes, it can prevent pollen from fertilizing the bud (according to an article I read a year or so back) - that may be an 'old wives tale' .

adknative said: And several sources have stated that, 'once the pistil has been pollinated, it closes and will not accept pollen again' ........ ?

But still - what would that make the ploidy on the cross?

I don't understand how the pistil could close after pollination although eventually I assume it degrades as the flower senesces but that would be well after pollination. The pollen grains land on the stigma and then each grows a tube down the style to the ovary. Behind the tip of the tube are the male cells. The style in daylilies is hollow, the tubes do not need to digest their way through the style. If the "pistil" closed right after pollination (which means placement of the pollen on the stigma) then how do the tubes get to the ovary, which takes quite a number of hours?

As for the ploidy, I don't think it would necessarily always be totally predictable but @admmad can answer that better than I can.

I know of no evidence or reason why the pistil of a daylily would "close" after being pollinated. As far as I know that is not something that is typical in plants. In many plants researchers pollinate the flower with one pollen and then pollinate it later with a second different pollen. The first pollen can have an advantage but the second pollen does not necessarily fail completely.

When a diploid is crossed with a tetraploid or a tetraploid is crossed with a diploid there are several different possibilities that can happen.
1) the flower does not form a pod and drops off more or less as expected.
2) the flower forms a pod
2a) the pod falls off after 7 to 10 days usually
2b) the pod stays and seems to develop for several weeks and then falls off
2c) the pod stays on and matures with no seeds
2d) the pod stays on and matures and has one or more seemingly normal looking seeds
3a) the seeds do not germinate
3b) one or more of the seeds germinates to produce a seedling.

If insects did not also pollinate the flower with pollen of the correct ploidy then if a seedling is produced it is most likely a triploid.

If the pod produces more or less a normal number of seeds and they germinate reasonably well to produce a relatively normal number of seedlings then the flower was most likely pollinated by an insect with pollen of the correct ploidy and the seedlings have the same ploidy as the pod parent.

If only one, or rarely two or three seedlings are produced then they may be triploids. However, if the pod parent is known to produce few seeds when pollinated with pollen of the correct ploidy all bets are off - the seedlings might be triploids or they might have the same ploidy as the pollen parent and have been produced by an insect pollination.

If the pod produces many good mature seeds and most of the seeds tested germinate then the seedlings are almost certainly the same ploidy as the pod parent and an insect was involved in pollinating the flower. Cross-ploidy pollinations that worked may produce one or rarely two good seeds in a pod.

Of 1607 pollinations between diploids and tetraploids and vice versa Arisumi managed 155 firm mature looking seeds. From 100 of those seeds only 23 germinated and only 17 seedlings survived the young seedling stage. For most of the crosses Arisumi made 6 pollinations. From 16 crosses each with 6 pollinations Arisumi only had one seedling each. He managed 2 seedlings from 4 crosses that had 6 to 10 pollinations each. He managed 3 seedlings from a cross with 10 pollinations.

All the seedlings that survived were triploids.

plasco20,
Thanks to Maurice for posting a link to the 1968 Horticultural Magazine, I read this the other day:
"In the two days before opening, the style of every flower grows so long that it bends back on itself much like one kind of paper clip or it develops zig-zag bends. When the flower opens, the total length of the style exceeds the greatest length of the bud (10.8 cm plus ovary length of 0.7 cm, vs 10.2 cm for one flower). A long style does not seem to be a major factor in unfruitfulness; rather, inhibitory substances secreted by the style into its canal, apparently are far more important in keeping the pollen tube from reaching the ovules."
I think that explains the kinks and curls in the style on your plant. I had always thought it was the long length and the kinks and curls that mainly made it so difficult to pollinate a bloom with such styles.

Back in the days when NGA mailed out an actual printed magazine, we were friends with one of the cover subjects: Glen Drowns, aka the Squash King. Glen always used brown paper lunch bags over the squash blossoms before and after hand pollinating them. He usually employed a few high school kids for help in this, since he grew hundreds of different cultivars on many acres of ground. I don't see why this wouldn't work with daylilies. In fact, I think it would be easier to bag them and get the tie twisted without damaging the plant. Not really a helpful answer regarding ploidy, but posting just so the home gamers don't feel too discouraged.

Brown paper lunch bags would certainly work. I have used 4" x 6" organza bags with drawstrings. But then I only had a couple of hundred flowers left after the deer had their meals.

Again, thank you for many great replies - @admmad (especially to Maurice, for his great knowledge and coherent explanations)!

Clearly, there is misinformation out there and finding accurate and knowledgeable sources is of benefit to all. One of my favourite things about the daylily forum is the opportunities to learn from more experienced gardeners.

I've been actively gardening for decades, read (literally) hundreds of books on all aspects of gardening and taken a couple dozen online classes, ranging from garden design to pruning trees... and all that has taught me is how much I do not know.

Found another great article on daylily hybridizing (originally printed by AHS, written by Tom Rood of Grace Gardens, Penn Yan, NY) -- which may also be of interest.

https://daylily.com/cgi-bin/au...

Kudos also @sooby ... Tom Rood talks about the theoretical possibilities of a daylily being fertilized by 'multiple' pollen parents, so clearly the insects getting to a daylily ... in addition to myself / any gardener... is also very likely. (Something we can all blame when our crosses blindside us with the totally unexpected.)

I tried the link above but it just took me to the Lily Auction.
I think this is probably the article being referred to.

https://www.ontariodaylily.on....

Sorry, I have to use a laptop some of the time and getting it to 'copy' is frequently impossible.

The correct link is:

http://www.gracegardens.com/gg...

This is section / Part 3 of 4, with access to all sections of the article via links at the bottom of the page (at the end of Part 3).

adknative said:I've followed the notes (and also interviews) by some of the well-known hybridizers ... Garden Gate magazine has done several that are available on YouTube, for example. And several sources have stated that, 'once the pistil has been pollinated, it closes and will not accept pollen again' - ?

I was just reading an old daylily article here on site by @Lalambchop1
"When doing your crosses, be aware of the temperature. It is my understanding that stigmatic fluid starts flowing at about 80 degrees. It's what comes out of the end of the pistil to activate any pollen that is there. Dan Hansen taught me that after a bit it dries and seals off the end of the stile. Once the tip is sealed it won't accept any more pollen. You need to have your chosen pollen in place before the tip is sealed."
So is there any scientific evidence that stigmatic fluid does actually dry and block the end of the stile? I have been told that if there is no stigmatic fluid on the stigma, that you can put the pollen on early and when the fluid does eventually
develop it will activate the pollen to grow a pollen tube. I don't suppose it would actually be necessary for the plant to be pollinized for the pistil to be blocked, it does seem possible the fluid could dry and seal off the pistil, but is it true?
I have also read you can take the stigmatic fluid from one stile and place it on that of another flower, but also read there was no evidence that actually worked. Might it be possible that dried stigmatic fluid could be affected by new stigmatic fluid and reactivated?