Viewing post #1787411 by CaliFlowers

ShakespearesGarden said:I read through the guy's patent. It looks like he started with a bunch of his own seedlings, mixed up pollen and dabbed it on everything he had already grown. Sounds like a messy way to create a plant...

"The new cultivar arose from crosses made in summer of 2006. Proprietary seed parent lines were pollinated with a mixture of pollen collected from proprietary pollen parents and the collected seeds were pooled and sown for evaluation. `VER00204` was selected as a single unique plant from the resulting seedlings in summer of 2009. The specific parents are unknown and none of the possible parent plants are named or patented." Third paragraph under background of invention.

I think the idea here is that "blending" pollen makes it almost magical. Particularly if it's 'proprietary pollen' from 'proprietary seed lines'. As ad copy, it's glorious, with an air of mystery and exclusivity, and I suppose it might appeal to a certain segment of the buying public.

What it sounds like to me is "Jelly Jar Hybridizing", or "Shotgunning", the former name alluding to the practice of storing all of one's seed in a jelly jar. Other than easing the worry and workload of the hybridizer, the only positive aspect I can see to this method is that sowing mixed seed removes the natural human tendency to favor the offspring of certain named varieties. This is actually not that uncommon of a practice even among respected daylily hybridizers, and quite a few cultivars are registered each year with partial or no parentage information.