I met Jeff and Jackie Pryor a couple of years ago when I joined the East Tennessee Daylily Society. He is the president of the society. Jeff and Jackie also grow daylilies for sale. At the time, I never thought that I would be interested in hybridizing and was content to buy plants from those who did. Well, guess what? Jeff gave such an interesting program that I'm considering entering this rather unique area of competition Take a look at Jeff's recommendations and the possibilities of what you might expect from certain colors used as pollen parents at the linked page at the end of the article.
Organizing Your Program
It would help to include an initial plant list with the parentage information. What do we mean by parentage information? When you use the pollen from one plant to fertilize another plant, you write down the pollen parent and the pod parent. Many catalogues tell you if a plant is a good pod parent. If you have a computer the next step is easier. When you write on the tags that you use to mark your hybridized plants, you have to come up with a shorthand method to combine "ELIZABETH SALTER and SILOAM DOUBLE CLASSIC." Keep your cultivar coding system two ways -- Cultivars in alphabetical order and codes in alphabetical order. You are also going to need a method to list the seedling, which can show the parentage, year, and type (Diploid or Tet).
Mapping Plant Locations
It is really good idea to map our your garden and keep a list of where each plant is located. When I first started out, I neglected to write down the names of about two dozen plants. Since there are over 36,000 named varieties that are listed, these plants may never get their name plates! Actually, there are more varieties developed each year so there is probably more than the 36,000 varieties that I presently know about.
Plant Marking System
Use See-Fine garden makers or Paint pens (preferably lacquer) for metal garden markers. Use old mini-blinds for pot markers. Make sure your write on both sides so if marking disappears on one side, you will still know what the plant is. You can use merchandise tags as pollen and pod markers. Write on both sides. Use Sharpie pens - ultra fine point for paper or Industrial (red label) fine or extra fine point for plastic. Seedling marker stakes need to be 1/8" diameter by 36" long. Welding rod works fine. You can also use Dymo tape label maker (heavy duty model) with the aluminum tape. Use copper wire, which is about three inches long, for attaching the label.
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