spunky1,
Fred said,
"This is about as good as it gets here.
LILLIAN'S VAPOR TRAIL Three clumps reblooming. Sure wish I could set a seed pod on it."

I have several plants in the garden that I have not been able to set a pod on. Any tips on how to encourage plants to set pods that you've had no luck with?
Anyone have any nice little secrets they would like to share?
I sometimes pick a plant I know seems to have really good pollen, I try at different times of day, and I try an assortment of pollen, that is about all I know to do.

Patience. For years I couldn't set a pod on Francis of Assisi. Don't even know why I kept trying. Then a couple of years ago I got a pod. The next year two pods. Few seeds but something! Absolutely nothing had changed. It is never going to be very fertile either way but it did eventually become barely pod/pollen fertile.

I have a question. Is it just as good if your daylily is pollen fertile? I have a couple plants that will only impregnate others, and they reject every advance from what I consider to be appropriate suitors!

Do they truly impart different attributes depending on which way they serve?

You might wait and save your pollen to try on the very last few blooms of your pod difficult parent. 'Osterized' and a seedling I have out of 'Osterized' are both just about impossible to set a pod on earlier in the season, but if you wait until almost the end, then you have a chance of setting pods that will mature.

That, and I'm sure temperatures play a part too. Iirc Bill Maryott said something once along the lines of if the nighttime temps go down to 50, then you won't get pods. And of course we all know if the daytime temps get too high, we won't get pods!

But it could be that some daylilies are even more twitchy about what temperatures they'll set (and carry) a pod at, than most daylilies.

I'm trying to be super careful this year to record high/low temps on days I hybridize. I was pretty good last year & have some info for previous years. So far I can see no good evidence that humidity, temperature or even rainfall has any effect. Some 'perfect' days, no crosses take. Other days when nothing should take (high temp, humidity &/or heavy rain) a surprisingly high number of pods set. I do need to check if later blooms produce more pods. Low temps probably don't matter for me since only 1-2 cultivars could possibly bloom when night temps get that low in Fall.

This is why I go out every day and make crosses. I just can't predict which is the best day/time/flower.

My weather is seldom over 80°, so seed-set is seldom a real problem, but there are always a few plants which are difficult. This is a compilation of information I've gleaned from old-school hybridizers.

I have better luck with the tough customers if I move them under some afternoon shade, and keep them well watered. A saucer helps, and I never let it go dry until the pods are well on their way.

Some hybridizers swear by "starter pollen". With tetraploids, you can use diploid pollen in order to get them started. The dip pods will abort after a week or so, but the process seems to trigger hormones which get the plant "in the mood" for seed making.

There are tetraploids with very reliable and powerful pollen. I keep 'Atlanta Antique Satin" around because of this, and use it to get the difficult tetraploids going. AAS is an induced tetraploid—I think it came from a batch of seeds which were treated with colchicine—so it could either be producing very strong tetraploid pollen, or it may still produce a few grains of diploid pollen. I've never examined it with a microscope. My tet conversion of 'Homeward Bound' is the same way.

Of course, it's hard to know if the starter pollen is doing the job, or if, as Marilyn notes, the last few flowers on the scape just tend to set more reliably. I have noticed that if a scape has gone without setting pods until the last blossom or two, even if a pod is set, many times the scape will decline, and along with it, the pod. So on the real tough cases, I like to use all of the tricks, plus pollinate early and often, just so that if any interesting opportunities come along later, the scape will be well-set with pods and has a better chance of setting and maturing the seed.

Holding back on nitrogen is supposed to help too. You can fertilize normally early in the season to build plant size, but when scapes start coming, cut the feeding and just give them lots of water.

Another old trick is to break the plant into small divisions in the fall. Small divisions put up small scapes with few buds, but tend to set pods more easily.

You can also push the plants strongly though the early part of the season in order to get rebloom scapes, which tend to be much more fertile than primary scapes. It's as if the plant knows it's going to rebloom, and "saves its energy" for the second set of scapes.

josieskid said:I have a question. Is it just as good if your daylily is pollen fertile? I have a couple plants that will only impregnate others, and they reject every advance from what I consider to be appropriate suitors!

Do they truly impart different attributes depending on which way they serve?

I'm not a botanist, (I don't even play one on TV) but I've heard that because of the disproportionate amount of mass between the pollen and the ovum, that some characteristics are more readily (or exclusively) carried forward by the seed parent. Variegation is the only one that comes to mind.

Wow, so much good advice! Ken, you must live in heaven!

I have no testing behind this...but I'm sure I read something here on garden.org that you can try pollenating the DL to itself and then try pollen from other daylilies.

Sue, I almost always have to self the first couple of daylilies. They aren't blooming at the same time and I haven't had luck with frozen pollen. I've had good seed set and then usually have more pods to follow from other dabs.

Plants that do not set pods are likely to be genetically sterile or to have genetically low fertility. That is the case for both female (pod) and male (pollen) fertility.
Because characteristics depend on genes, the environment and the way the genes and environments work together there can be times when a genetically sterile plant has a little fertility.
The environmental effects that might make a genetically sterile plant slightly fertile sometimes are not necessarily the obvious temperature, light, water, fertilizer, etc. but include the internal environment of the plant, for example, natural plant hormones. Those environmental effects also may not happen close to the time that the plant flowers but are more likely to have happened many months (ore even the year) before when the scape was first starting to develop.

When one hybridizes with a plant of low fertility and registers and introduces its offspring into the daylily world one should be aware that if the registered plant also has low fertility it is increasing the sterility in the daylily gene pool. Natural selection - Mother Nature - effectively eliminates those plants and thus keeps the level of plant sterility in the gene pool low. Daylily hybridizers (who introduce plants of low fertility commercially) not so much so the problem is increasing with time.

josieskid said:I have a question. Is it just as good if your daylily is pollen fertile?

Yes

Do they truly impart different attributes depending on which way they serve?

No, except for white/green variegation in some cases and a few other characteristics that are not important to daylily hybridizers, such as some cases of pollen sterility, herbicide resistance, etc.

Temperatures are important to the success of a pollination. Different daylilies may have different temperature limits to fertility.

CaliFlowers said:My weather is seldom over 80°, so seed-set is seldom a real problem, but there are always a few plants which are difficult. This is a compilation of information I've gleaned from old-school hybridizers.

Unfortunately old-school hybridizers are not usually trained scientists or specifically plant biologists. Their actual observations are more or less correct but typically their conclusions about the causes of those observations are not.

I have better luck with the tough customers if I move them under some afternoon shade, and keep them well watered. A saucer helps, and I never let it go dry until the pods are well on their way.

This one is good as high temperatures are harmful to successful pollinations and pod development and different plants may have different temperatures that limit their success. Water stress (not enough) is never good and may cause pod abortion or other problems.

Some hybridizers swear by "starter pollen". With tetraploids, you can use diploid pollen in order to get them started. The dip pods will abort after a week or so, but the process seems to trigger hormones which get the plant "in the mood" for seed making.

This one is unlikely. There is no known plant where scientific research has indicated any possibility of this sort of effect. Nor as far as I know are there any known plant hormones that would alter the seed making ability of the plant in such a way. The most likely reason this may appear to work is if early in the season pollinations are not as successful as pollinations later in the season. A plant biologist has indicated that this appears to be the case with daylilies and I agree. For one thing the weather is different at different times and waiting a week means that will be the case.

Of course, it's hard to know if the starter pollen is doing the job,

Not likely, biologically.

or if, as Marilyn notes, the last few flowers on the scape just tend to set more reliably.

Much more likely.

I have noticed that if a scape has gone without setting pods until the last blossom or two, even if a pod is set, many times the scape will decline, and along with it, the pod.

Yes, unfortunately. Also if many pods are set on a scape the last few may be aborted.

Holding back on nitrogen is supposed to help too. You can fertilize normally early in the season to build plant size, but when scapes start coming, cut the feeding and just give them lots of water.

Not likely. The plant will need nitrogen to store nutrients in the seed.

Another old trick is to break the plant into small divisions in the fall. Small divisions put up small scapes with few buds, but tend to set pods more easily.

Not likely. Only one hybridizer that I know has ever made this comment and there certainly will have been no way that the hybridizer will have eliminated the possibility that in the year this worked the plant would have shown the same fertility without being divided down into small divisions. Biologically the effect would be the opposite - small fans that flowered would be more likely to abort the pods because they were being too stressed by the nutrient demands/requirements of the developing pods/seeds.

You can also push the plants strongly though the early part of the season in order to get rebloom scapes, which tend to be much more fertile than primary scapes. It's as if the plant knows it's going to rebloom, and "saves its energy" for the second set of scapes.

Possible. Different weather and other environmental factors in the first set of flowers developing during the previous year, winter and spring and the rebloom set of flower developing during the spring and summer.

Thank you for answering my questions, Maurice!