Betty (Betja) posted that Heavenly Gardens has the rest of their 2021 intros, so I went on the website and noticed the ploidy testing info. I had never heard of pentaploid or hexaploid before, but Jamie Gossard is showing Heavenly New Frontiers as a pentaploid. However, when I look up the 5 children of Heavenly New Frontiers, they are listed as tetraploids. I didn't think this was possible. Can someone explain what is going on with this? Are dip x dip and tet x tet not always true?

Jamie's ploidy testing info.
https://heavenlygardens.com/PL...

Heavenly New Frontiers info:
https://heavenlygardens.com/ga...

Hi Vickie-

Heavenly Frontiers is the first known Pentaploid. (It is registered as Tetraploid because AHS did not have a Pentaploid option, but the description notes its actual ploidy.) The Heavenly Gardens website explains, "Flow cytometer results puts Heavenly New Frontiers(G1) between Tetraploid and Hexaploid, which makes it a Pentaploid (5x DNA Ploidy). Pentaploids have 5 sets of chromosomes, 55 for a daylily." Jamie says, "It is extremely pod and pollen fertile. Its pollen sets on 3.5x, 4x,5x ploidy with ease." Crossing across ploidy levels is still in its infancy; the other parents of the currently registered kids of Heavenly Frontiers are Tets.

His website https://plantploidy.com/news.h... suggests that when plants are being chemically converted from diploid to tetraploid the process can actually create a mixture of cells with different ploidy. (This is called a chimera, which has tissue that genetically contains at least two different sets of DNA.) Jamie describes separating three fans of a cross he made that were 3x (Triploid), 4x (Tetraploid) and 5x (Pentaploid). "We were able to cross the 4x fan with normal tetraploids and were able to cross the 5x with 3.5x and 5x plants."

"The theory is cells at the apical meristem (growing point) of converted flowers can when dividing yield different ploidies. Mixed ploidy is why many of the flowers we buy are hard to use. Ploidy deviation can be caused in making tet conversions, the use of BAP and Pre-Emergents herbicides and, of course, nature."

"To make matters even worse," he says, "recent testing indicates that incomplete pairs of chromosomes and/or chromosome segments result from chemical conversion. The consequences are plants with partial ploidy or a chromosome numbers outside the normal homologous pairings."

The flow cytometer has opened up new possibilities for hybridizers. According to his website Jamie has "identified at least 7 haploids," which he posits "may be a way to make rust resistant daylilies."

Michael Miller at Small World Gardens has listed Small World 8th Wonder Of The World as an Octoploid and thinking that
it resulted from the conversion process...

"(It is registered as Tetraploid because AHS did not have a Pentaploid option, but the description notes its actual ploidy.)"

It must be possible to avoid selecting between dip and tet when registering other ploidies because there are two triploids where no ploidy is given other than in the description ('VT Purple Passion' and 'VT Spirit').

I have both of them, and they were supposed to be triploid. Both cross easily with tets.

It is not uncommon for AHS registration options to lag hybrid developments. Notable was the addition of "polytepal," which hybridizers had observed from the earliest days of breeding (Stout called them "pseudo-doubles." ); for many years the occurrence was thought to be a flaw. Reinke held off registering his landmark Give Me Eight until he could successfully lobby AHS to add the category. (Members of the poly robin had begun collecting extensive records about the occurrence - readers may be interested in an article by Anne Clover in the Fall 2001 Daylily Journal.) There is no standard for the percent of poly bloom to qualify for the designation of polytepal, although cultivars can be registered with the percent observed by the breeder.

If a variety of ploidies become more common perhaps AHS will consider additional options to this plant characteristic. In the near term, it will be interesting to see which ones actually can be used to create other genetic breakthroughs.

Polymerous:
In order to conform to current botanical usage, AHS has adopted this term in place of "polytepalous" and "polytepal".

"It is not uncommon for AHS registration options to lag hybrid developments"

The two triploids I referred to were registered before 'Heavenly New Frontiers' so it was already possible to avoid choosing between tet and dip if the plant is neither. I don't know why there hasn't been an option for triploid though since they've been around for longer than daylilies have been registered.

Thanks for the terminolgy update Larry! (I was looking at the 2000 article.) I was fascinated with how many of my daylilies poly'ed last year.

Interesting information about the earlier registrations Sue - I think interest in ploidies became more widespread with the introduction of HNF (a Pentaploid) and with Jamie's promotion of his flow cytometer and ability to provide the service to other hybridizers. I wonder how those two daylilies were confirmed as Triploids? I think many dabbers just use a microscope to check pollen size (if they don't already know the ploidy) or observe how large the resulting seeds are.

I wonder if some of the ploidies resulting from attempted conversions (especially partial ploidies) are fully stable.

Thanks for all the explanations! I'm gathering that before a cytometer was used, in some cases it was assumed that if a daylily did not set pod it was because it was just a difficult plant to set pod to, when it really may have been because it was a different ploidy.

"I wonder how those two daylilies were confirmed as Triploids? I think many dabbers just use a microscope to check pollen size (if they don't already know the ploidy) or observe how large the resulting seeds are.."

See this article by the listed hybridizers:

https://link.springer.com/arti...

Whew, what a process. It seems strange to me that the result of Tetraploid daylilies being created has the exact opposite effect of what they are hoping for with Triploids +.
The genetic diversity of daylilies is rapidly decreasing because hybridizers are prefering to use Tetraploid daylilies. This was said to be because the Tetraploids were the result of a relatively few diploids being converted and the huge preference for Tetraploids by breeders.
It seems to me that with the much more complicated process of creating Triploid+ daylilies that will have so many more preferred traits over Dips. and Tets. that the same process of preference would take place and as a result breeders would be using a much reduced genetic diversity therefore to choose from, if the Dips. and Tets. both were to become out of favor as they indicate the current Tet. over Dip. preference seems to have taken place.

Fascinating, Sue - thank you!

It appears that they also used flow cytometry for confirmation.

Reference to earlier Daylily Journal articles is also fascinating. Lots of reading material for exploration.

To add to that, Larry, Jamie was talking about converting a Triploid to Hexaploid.

Easy to get fascinated with gene manipulation without creating exceptional daylilies.

I think many breeders have a renewed interest in working with diploids.

That is what my "+" sign was suppose to indicate, trips., hexs.,and more. What happens if the hexaploids are much better plants than anything we have now. Everybody starts using the dozen or so available ones to hybridize with, won't the genetic diversity plumet?
Of course that would be years away and we have no idea how it will play out, but fun to think about things like that, and can be a little scary.

Larry, I am a believer that there is still interesting genetic material in some of our historic daylilies that could be tapped by crossing with newer ones

Hear, hear Wendy! And I'm following this ploidy conversation that's so interesting. I have a small dip program that has me doing precisely that. I'm really looking for an artistic feeling that dips create with their graceful, lighter, self-grooming blooms and plant habits. Sturdy tets are amazing but in different directions. And I gather that simple dip genes are easier to predict and manipulate. I need strong but very wiry, branched scapes with grassy foliage, and the older material provides that. Then... how to rapidly breed the yellow out? Can I buy some time as I buy Golden Chimes for that 90 degree bloom placement?

Justine I am guessing it takes some research into the child plants that showed color breaks - maybe also using some of the known color clarifiers?

And then there's the problem of trying to locate some of the older ones. Sometimes I think we are replicating work that was already done to get to the right starting place.

Hmm...

Part of the problem of locating older varieties are that there are no photos of them in the data base. Some photos exist and as I've combed through various Daylily catalogues online, I've found some of my older daylilies ( like Alnilam, 1949) there. But, if there's only one not great photo, a plant can be hard to identify. I bought daylilies for years without marking them and now many of them will have to remain NOIDS.
Here's a good example. I have a Daylily that is clearly something old but I have no way to know what is. I spot a close looking photo in a catalogue. I think that this plant

is actually Charmaine, a Stout plant, registered for 1954.
It has a child plant registered for 1941 ( go figure THAT one out!)
But there is literally no way to check digitally as there is nothing in the data base. If I really wanted to know, I would have to order Charmaine from that catalogue, plant and observe it. It just seems there should be an easier way...

There are some wonderful historic gardens, and the people that manage them can be very helpful. There is also a NOIDS group on Facebook that can sometimes help with identification, especially if you have some inkling of what it might be, when you got it, etc.

As the the registration dates for the Stout plants, I wonder if the one registered in 1941 seemed like more of a breakthrough at the time, and the decision was made later to register the parent. There are certainly some wonderful unregistered plants that had become parents to fantastic registered daylilies more recently.