Is a Blue Daylily in Your Future?
The Rest of the Story
Just finding a plant with a high degree of Delphinidin is one part of the problem. You also need to breed with a plant that has an absence of orange pigment and high in insoluble flavonols. Plants that are high in this substance may be diamond-dusted. This indicates a miro-crystalline deposit in the petals. However it is extremely difficult to test for. When they tested the near white Daylilies, they could not detect it. This would appear to make the flavonols a recessive trait. It was in the cream colored Daylilies that they discovered the flavonol.
Case B.Co-pigmentation Partner Hybridization, Isolated Recessives
In the book entitled The Elusive BLUE DAYLILY, which was published by the American Hemerocallis Society, they presented three hypotheses for hybridizing a blue Daylily. I will provide a synopsis of Case B. You would use a purple hemerocallis of the probable genotype: ddFF and flavonol hemerocallis of probable genotype:DDff.
What does this mean. The purple hemerocallis has delphinidin present and no flavonol. These plant also have similar gene types (homozygous). The flavonol (appears white) hemerocallis has no delphinidin and flavonol present. These plants are homozygous. The term homozygous means that the plants have dissimilar pairs of genes.
Bear with me now as we try to explain Mendelian behavior. The first generation contain no delphinidin or flavonol, and would have no specific color, BUT these are the ones that may have the key to the blueDaylilyy. The second generation would possess the 16 combinations of these two generations and one of them could be the genotype ddff, which is the blue hemerocallis.
This same book has a rebuttal by Dr. Joseph C. Halinar who finds this idea too simplified to work because the researchers have no empirical data to support their assumptions. His other objection concerns the statement about the fact that the purple hemerocallis is assumed to be genetically recessive. He asked for a more definitive statement. What was it recessive to? My own thoughts were that the color purple was a recessive trait. However, I am not in these gentlemen's league when it comes to plant genetics so I defer to their expertise.
Dr. Kasha provides a response to Dr. Halinar in the same book. He realized that he presented the case in a simplified form, but maintains that he did it so other hybridizers would try new methods to the creation of a blue Daylily
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