Cutting Edge Genetics

I admit that I felt inspired yesterday after receiving comments on my post about losing southern daylilies. It feels a relief to share thoughts and frustrations on what to others, outside of our daylily bubble, is not a particularly interesting topic. I count many local gardeners as my friends, but few specialize in daylilies and none hybridize. What a relief to find a group who is interested in pontificating about both!

Yesterday Paul Lewis used the phrase cutting edge genetics in his comment. Today I would like to deconstruct that expression and try to get at what is meant by that. 

The term cutting edge, to me, indicates something that is both new and superior to what was. This begs the question, can genetics be cutting edge? Genetics is a field of study. Can we say cutting edge physics? biology? literature? 

Actually, yes, we can... and when we do we are usually referring to what is new and perhaps more complicated and esoteric, but not necessarily what is superior, although that is sometimes implied. Quantum physics is a new field, but it's not superior to mechanical physics.  Contemporary literature, even that lauded as brilliant and amazing, isn't necessarily superior to all its predecessors. 

So perhaps cutting edge genetics is really just a term that means new and novel genetics--or, more specifically, genetic code that is sequenced in a new way that produces a specific behavioral and/or phenotypical trait not previously seen in a daylily. But I think it's important that we recognize that what is novel is not always superior, and is sometimes, in fact, inferior to what has been previously introduced.

Take Nicole DeVito's, Indefinable. We all know it. That daylily started a craze in creating variegated daylilies. Pink Stripes preceded Indefinable, but Pink Stripes is a dip, and is simply striped, as opposed to Indefinable's broken splotches of yellow and magenta. (This is not to diss Pink Stripes, which is a superior plant in so many ways. It's hardy. It multiplies readily. It's fertile.)

But we all love Indefinable. We all paid a gazillion dollars to obtain it. We all coddle it to keep it alive. We all dream of introducing a daylily as beautiful as that one. 

The thing is, though, as most of you know, Indefinable is a flawed plant in many ways. It is not hardy (which is a big flaw in my mind ;), it is not robust and vigorous even when given the most loving care and brought inside for the winter, it is not quick to bloom and it is very persnickety about setting seed. So while I would agree that Indefinable is cutting edge genetically, it is only cutting edge in that its color mutation is not one that has been seen before. The plant itself is an inferior plant in most other ways. 

A goal has been to take the broken color feature of Indefinable and breed it into a more robust, hardy plant. This has been done, now, by a few hybridizers. Rich Howard comes to mind. :) I don't own one of Rich's Indefinable babies yet, so I can't speak to what they are like outside of the beautiful flower, but I still question whether those genetics are superior, or whether those genetics are simply new phenotypically while exhibiting more classically superior traits like good habit and hardiness. 

All of this to say:

Most of us equate a new look with superior genetics. 

They aren't the same thing.

I think what many of us aim to do is create daylilies with a new look, that ALSO exhibit the superior (and classic, as in, not new) genetic traits of hardiness, vigor, great branching and bud count, resistance to disease/rust, and an attractive habit. Very few hybridize with the hope of creating superiority in terms of the latter characteristics with little or no attention paid to phenotype. Brian Reeder of Sundragon Daylilies comes to mind. 

Like many, I am a sucker for a new look. But I think we need to be careful about labeling those southern beauties that we have to treat with kid gloves to insure their survival as "cutting edge" genetically or otherwise. As hybridizers, we still will want to obtain those plants so we can get to work translating that new look into something we know will actually thrive (not just survive) in any horticultural zone. But when appealing to daylily enthusiasts who aim to collect and show off their plants as opposed to use them solely in hybridizing, I think we have to be careful about using such terms as cutting edge in common parlance. 

We also need to be honest about the plant we are introducing. If it's not hardy, that's fine! But tell the world it's not hardy. It's quite telling that we sell a plant by only showing a picture of its flower on the very best day it's ever had, and sometimes using filters that belie its actually colors. It is possible to be honest, and I think it's also our responsibility as hybridizers. Some have started to do this. I noted Subhana Ansari (Flourishing Daylilies) indicates exactly where her lilies have survived and where they have not on her website. 

Thoughts?

This is Grossman's Prince of Camelot. It has beautiful flowers and is a robust plant. 

 

Losing Southern Grown Daylilies Over the Winter

I've been writing blog posts in my head, as I work, for months. 

Through Facebook I have become friendly with so many daylily enthusiasts, many who hybridize as I do. I know you're out there!  I hope that this blog serves as a launching point for discussions of all things daylily--and gardening and birding and hybridizing / breeding of any and all plants and animals. 

This morning I'd like to write about how I AM SICK OF LOSING SOUTHERN GROWN DAYLILIES OVER THE WINTER.

And yet. 

I still purchase southern-grown daylilies. Again and again. And I use them in my hybridizing. And then my seedling don't make it through the winter. And hence we must ask, What is wrong with me?

Partly the problem is that *sometimes* a southern grown daylily will do well here. I remember learning in Psychology 101--a class I took some thirty odd years ago--but still, that in terms of Pavlovian training, intermittent rewards make a rat more addicted to a behavior than constant rewards. So, the fact that sometimes a daylily from the south does great here in Massachusetts has trained me to keep buying them. That must be it. :)

It's easy to identify a dormant based on its spring time condition. It has shed its leaves completely over the winter, and those leaves are dead, dry and crumpled at the base of the plant come spring, easily swept away. Evergreens, on the other hand, are a tangled mass of moist, decaying leaves from which new growth attempts to grow. You can't just swipe away last summer's growth because it's actually still very much a part of the plant. It's no wonder evergreens generally don't do as well here, then, as they just don't give up, attempting to stay alive above ground all winter long. Dormants rest. Evergreens keep working--even though the energy they need from the sun to keep chugging along isn't available to them as it is in the south. 

But those southern beauties are just so ... beautiful! I can't resist bringing them north to their peril.

I've introduced sixteen daylilies over the last three years. Naturally I love all of them, but I must admit that it's been so much easier for me to keep the dormants I've introduced in stock, as opposed to the evergreens. My dormants bounce back after division and happily and sturdily create new fans for me to sell each spring, but my evergreens reproduce so much more slowly and suffer every time I divide them.  Hence, my dormants are out in the world at this point, in others' gardens, but my evergreens are rarely for sale at all, and when they are sold I worry they will not do well in any garden north of my own. 

The moral of the story is....

I've been hybridizing for six years now, and I'm just now beginning to understand my own criteria for a plant I want to introduce. It can't just survive the winter. It has to like the winter, and it has to multiply in a way that allows me to continually sell it or gift it to others. This eliminates 90% of my seedlings from contention. And this breaks my little heart. It really does.

It especially breaks my heart because it means I need to stop using tender, southern beauties in my hybridizing, or at the very the least only one parent can be of that type. 

Here are a few seedlings that bloomed last summer for me that either didn't make it through the winter or barely made it. 

 Luanne Tarro x Holy Lamb

 unknown x Little Red Genie

Cherry Ripples x Chaos Choeography

 Crystal Rubies x The Ultimate Sacrifice

Are you sad for me? I am sad for me. I'm also a bit sad for these beautiful plants, who had they been created in say, Florida, they might be on the road to introduction! But instead they graced me with their ephemeral beauty, and then succumbed to the evils of wintry night. Tragedy.

Thanks for reading my drivel. 

For those interested in all things daylily and hybridizing, I'm going to attempt to write most days going forth. :) 

If you are a daylily person and feel moved to comment, please do! This blog is going to be my way of reaching out to you to share our common obsession.