opabinia51
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Yes, I know that they are not creating new species what they are actually doing is mixing up the genes through the process of recombination. And I actually think that it is great to be doing that because if vegetative reproduction (creating clones) is the only way that plants are reproduced you can get into some real trouble if a disease of some sort comes along as there will not be any resistance in a population to combat that disease.
So, from a survival point of view, it is actually really good for the genus Hemerocallis to have people breeding them. The whole colchicine thing doesn't do much for the genus but, I think all breeding that is not inbreeding is good breeding. :)

opabinia51
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Here is something that I learned while researching for an article on Daylilies:

Did you know that Daylilies were first cultivated by the Chinese around 504 BC and they were not used for visual pleasure but rather for medicine and food crops?

The Helpful Gardener
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Deep fried daylily buds are tasty, and I 've munched em raw; some are better than others...

Opa, that cross breeding thing is great to a point but with our natives the crossing being done by man sometimes creates a plant that no longer holds the wildlife values that it once did. Should those genes become a larger part of the pool (as they are in most cases) then the wildlife may lose an integral part of it's food bank or habitat, to what loss we can only conjecture. So while the inter-breeding may be to the benefit of the particular genus and species, it may be detrimental to the biosphere at large...

Devil's Advocate

opabinia51
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Yes while obviously when crossbreading, with the intent of perpetuating a species survival it is only beneficial to species of a given area from the standpoint of human bystanders if the breading is done with "like" species from that environment.
But, let us not forget the founder effect of the introduction of an individuals or many "like" individuals genetic material to a new population and how this has led to disease resistance and so on.
Of course this brings me back to the discussion that we had in your poll on invasives. It is definately not beneficial from an Ecological perspective to breed a plant from North America with one from Asia. However, in the case of Daylilies, the genus Hemerocallis originated in Asia and not North America so, it is not native to here and is what one might call a novelty plant.
But, many species of Apple are native to North America and if the species is constantly inbred and cloned, it looses genetic diversity that is much needed for the species survival. I am sure that long after humans have gone the way of the dinosaur, that many plants will still be around and from my perspective it is best to give such plants a fighting chance. Not to mention a fighting chance to deal with all the environmental problems that we have and are causing.
Oh yes, and the daylily that I bought last May was really nice to simply pick off the Scape and eat. Really tasty and somewhat akin to eating a leaf of lettuce. Anyway, off to make some Jumbalaya.

The Helpful Gardener
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All good points Opa, but my mind drifted when you said jambalaya...

Mmmmm...tasso...

Mmmmm...andouille...

8)

Scott

opabinia51
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Mmmmm Jumbalaya!! Now that it is the season again, I might try throwing some of my daylily flowers into the Jumbalaya pot! Oh, I bet that would taste great!

opabinia51
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Saw some beautiful spider varieties of Daylily at the Horticultural Center of the Pacific (on Quayle Road) this past weekend. Just spectacular.


My Daylilies are up and doing well. Though, the cultivars that I planted last year seem to be the fall blooming variety just because the only one that is actually blooming is the same one that I was talking about last year. Still love it though.

And I'm still looking for Starman's Quest.

One cool thing is that I met a lady at the Organics fair who came by our booth and she grows Daylilies as well. We exchanged emails such that we are able to exchange cultivars in the not to distant future. Should be fun! :)

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Franco
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I thought in plants triploid was better than diploid and so on. I know that most strawberries grown are octoploid and are disease resistent and don't die from frost and so on.

opabinia51
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Ploidy doesn't directly infer resistance and cold hardiness or what have you. It's actually a lot more complicated that that though, endosperm in plant seeds is generally triploid to add more nturients to the mix.

Anyway, this is a very complex topic and whole theses have been written on it.



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