Sometimes I find the stigma and pollinate it on doubles, but even before pollination, the seed pod looks like it would not be able to produce seeds. I don't know why I have this feeling. It just usually looks too thin and weak for reproduction. It seems like doubles turned the seed pod into something that holds the amount of petals in one flower. On the singles, the seed pod is already round, even before pollinating. Anyone had some observations about it? How successful are you with pollinating doubles when you find a stigma?

In my previous message through a mistake of mine in my data base now corrected, I listed the crosses the wrong way and ES was successful as a female not as male as I previously indicated, sorry that I misled anyone. I'm also very eager to see what will come out of these crosses. What is dominant and what is recessive is different when a plant is used as male from when it is used as female. Contrary as to what we have in other genera, when it come to hipp., nothing (or so very little) is known, we don't event know what the parents are and that is a major problem for a breeder. We have no idea either of what each cultivar can pass on or not, except maybe for papilio, we can only guess and that is too bad, and very bad for any breeder. When my crosses will bloom, I intend to publish pictures of both parents and their progeny, so everybody can make their own idea and take notes if they want to for their own breeding program. Laurier

You're very welcome... I'm glad to help in any way I can. I should have mentioned that my success rate is 50% or less on average for bringing seed pods to maturity. Ploidy of the individual variety has a lot to do with compatibility in breeding these flowers, and Ploidy is the one thing we don't have a complete list of. So, at this point, it's a guessing game for me... which varieties are self-sterile, which are Diploid, which are Triploid or Tetraploid? I'm not sure... I just go with what works, take the seeds I produce, and have fun with it all. At some point, I'd like to get a bit more serious and record an actual breeding program... I'm in a holding pattern until we buy our next home, though. Ploidy is one of the parts of flower breeding that I don't know very much about, though at some point, I'd like to learn more. What I'm trying to say is... success will be few, failures many... but the process is still fun, and you may get surprised with more successes than I have. And, you'll learn a lot along the way.

"Selfing" any Hybrid plant (or bulb) will result in a range of colors, patterns and even petal shapes. Usually they aren't quite as nice as the parent, but nature will always surprise us! Out-crossing gives a different set of results because you have added a different gene mix and that result will also be wide ranging, but many will look more like one parent or the other in form, petal shape and other variables. Hippeastrums have been hybridized for HUNDREDS of years so the gene pool is actually pretty complex, so we can't always count on particular traits showing up in the new generation, they have to be able to recombine in ways that make that trait the more dominate one. If you are working with species, things get a lot more clear, and this is especially true if you happen to be working with the H. cybister hybrids. You know you will get narrow petals as narrow seems to be more dominate over wide/full petals. From all the Cybister Hybrids I have seen/grown, they all tend to be strongly H. cybister in form. Of course there are other "spidery" species that may be in the lineage of these "Cybister Hybrids" and that is were one begins to get wider variations in color, shape and form. Then there's the H. papilio hybrids. I am still waiting to see blooms from Chico X papilio seedlings, but I suspect they will have to shape/form of Chico and the color/patterns of H. papilio and I hope a bud count of more than 2 (papilio and primary papilio crosses tend to only have 2 blooms, buy mature bulbs do produce multiple stems as well as preferring to have "pups" crowded around the mother bulb - papilio resents being divided). At the end of the day, whatever forms you decide to breed, the result is always fun! When it no longer ends with being fun, that's when you stop and move on to something else, perhaps other genera in the hippie Family.