DogsNDaylilies said:Maurice, everything you say is very true for a test of 'equal variability' among seedlings, yet I still think it is somewhat reasonable to wonder about the general results and tendencies. 
I cannot control all factors, but I hope to plant some of my A x B and B x A crosses in the garden beds I have at some point in the future and simply see if there is a strong favoring toward plant characteristics of one parent or the other based on pre-determined attributes (Height of foliage, branch count, etc...)
It might not be possible to account for all variables, but if there is a strong enough leaning toward one or the other in the seedlings then it might make it worth ensuring that I don't even bother with pod parents that have poor plant habits. ...Before you argue that I should already have this philosophy, though, please note that some of my plants were purchased before I had established exactly which plant characteristics I thought were most important 
and some were purchased because they had other great traits that I hoped to cross with cultivars that had better plant habits.
I would never want to discourage anyone from investigating something and satisfying their curiosity. However, I think nearly always what happens is that a specific result is observed and the conclusion is that it is a general result and that the cause of the specific result is not the one expected; that is, it is not the one that was meant to be tested.
The following is just one possible example (of many) of what I mean. Let us suppose I objectively and scientifically design a test of the pod and pollen parent contributions to bud count (or flower size, or number of branches, etc.). I make my reciprocal crosses (I make certain insects do not pollinate the flowers before or after me, etc.). I plant the seeds following the scientific procedures and I measure the characteristic when the seedlings are 3, 4, and 5 years old. I analyze the results and I find that the pod parent seems to contribute a bit more to the seedling's characteristic than the pollen parent (or substantially more, it is not relevant to the example as in either case it is statistically significantly more). I decide that it is a general characteristic of daylilies that pod parents determine the characteristic more than pollen parents. Some one else decides to repeat the test. In doing so they look at the seeds produced by the two crosses and notice that when A is the pod parent the seeds are larger than when B is the pod parent. That is a perfectly typical finding since seed size is a pod parent characteristic and not a pollen parent characteristic just as pollen grain size is a pollen parent characteristic and not a pod parent characteristic. However, seed size is a very important factor determining seedling characteristics. That is, it is known that seed size has effects on seedling size and other seedling characteristics. This second person decides that they will measure the seedling characteristics every year for a total of six consecutive years (3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 years old). They also decide that they will analyze the seedling characteristics by testing how they change with time or seedling age. When they complete their test and analysis they confirm that the BA (cultivar B x cultivar A) and AB (cultivar A x cultivar B) seedling characteristics are different during years 3, 4 and 5. But they also find that the differences become smaller with each passing year and they have completely disappeared by year 8. The reciprocal differences in the seedlings were not genetic; not genetically inherited differently from the pod versus the pollen parent and were a consequence of the seed size differences in the pod parents.
In reality, it known that there are seed size differences between plants; that there are internal nutrient differences in seeds between plants. Seeds can be different even with no visible size differences. It is known that seed differences affect seedling characteristics but that in general the differences fade with the passage of time. The amount of time needed for the differences to disappear can be years.
There are other factors similar to seed differences that can affect whether reciprocal crosses produce seedlings with some differences. Those factors may be non-genetic but even when they are genetic they can be specific to the combination of parent cultivars used in the specific cross and the specific characteristic measured and not general to the same characteristic in other crosses or other characteristics.
It is difficult, perhaps even very difficult, to produce a valid conclusion from observations made without following scientific objective procedures. That is, we may think our observations looked for a particular effect and showed that it was present when in fact many other effects could have produced the same results. If we do not eliminate (by our test design) the possibility that known other effects can produce the same results then all the energy, time, and other resources that we put into the test will not have been used in the best manner.
I'll just have to look at my notes really carefully this season and hope that there is a PlantStep update that fixes the issue in the future!
I discovered this the other day. The trouble is that in some parts of PlantStep, your cursor has to be *exactly* placed in the correct spot or it starts your numbers incorrectly. For seed counts above 9, I have to triple or quadruple click the field (to select all) in order to put the double-digit seed count in. 
