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SteveM
It would be incredibly fun to chat with Dr Hammett. I wasn't looking for this specific information but when it repeatedly presented itself among a variety and was repeatedly different in another variety it stood out.

It could be nothing. It could be something but it's something to look into again next season.

If anyone has HH Code Red or HH Ms White I would check to see if the pollen and stigma mature at the same time. They repeatedly produce similar seedlings for me in size and petal shape though they are never better than the parent. Unfortunately they got swept into the culling in the last 2 years.

    I read this article a few months ago, but forgot about it. The American Dahlia Society Bees Don’t Care – Hybridizers Should. It goes into a bit of detail on Dahlia anatomy and the article mentions the anther/stigma maturation process.

    https://www.dahlia.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/dehis.jpg contains the "DRAWINGS" referenced in the article, and I captured this screenshot:

    From [Wikipedia]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dehiscence_(botany)):

    Anther dehiscence is the final function of the anther that causes the release of pollen grains.

    I was going to post this on Facebook but this is a better forum for random thoughts: There are two dahlia activities that are mutually exclusive: Collecting seeds and digging the dahlias. Seed harvesting only happens before you dig the dahlia clumps. We do a final check for nice seed pods just before we chop down the foliage. However, we have been gathering seeds for about 6 weeks by then and anything we collect is just a bonus crop. Having said that, there are many, many seed pods that are not harvested here. Some varieties have been proven to have inferior seedlings yet they make a bazillion seeds. I see the huge over packed seed pods of one particular variety and wish that it was a good seed parent as collecting 1,000 seeds from a half dozen plants would be possible. Digging the Giant and Large row of flowers takes extra time as we check nearly every plant for seeds. Once in awhile, a giant will surprise you with seeds but some of the giants do not ever make seeds. Every year, I check Show-N-Tell for seeds pods but after 10 years of checking there never has been any seeds. I have noticed that seed pods collected after a frost are real crap shoot. Many of them have been partially frozen and rot sets in quickly, especially when you bring them into the warm house. The very ripe pods do much better but it is hard to to distinguish a sort of ripe pod from really ripe one while you are concentrating on digging.

      Teddahlia thanks for the advice! I appreciate your random thoughts, as a newbie hybridizer.

        7 days later

        I divided a first year tuber clump and got 9 tubers. I looked it up and it was one of those that got marked for retention but there was not enough enthusiasm to write any remarks. Now it has one very positive comment: "makes lots of tubers" . Perhaps, if we ever sell it, I will post a picture of the tubers instead of the flower. I bet that it will be one of the second year seedlings that we do not dig but it deserves another shot at glory.

        I wonder if it was this one that had it's picture taken more as a prank Actually, this is a "Bill Mishler" picture as he would bring an over the hill, open center flower to a dahlia meeting and say: "You should have seen this one before it went over the hill,." Margaret wanted a picture and this was the only flower and I bet she would say it was a good one.

          4 days later

          I have a habit of posting progress reports on the dahlia activities. Digging is done here but the dividing is in progress. Dividing takes many,
          many hours more time than digging. I divide in this order: first year seedlings. second(multi years as some third year in there) year seedlings, all the rest and that is the bulk of the dividing and it includes the named varieties grown in our main garden.
          I finished the first year seedlings and marked 124 to grow another year. One clump(a yellow waterlily with a nice flower) set a new record of 14 tubers, beating the previous record of 12 tubers last year. I will not take cuttings as there are enough tubers. By the way, we mark the best of the best and take cuttings from them to be sure we have enough of them to evaluate and if it is a good one, we have headstart on tuber production. I do not have the count on the best ones as that is a joint decision with Margaret but it is usually about 15- 20. By the way, there is never enough information written on most of the seedlings. Even the best ones get a short write up. Pictures are taken and then often not labeled as to which one it was. We always say we will do better on these issues but in our "dahlia seedling frenzy" when we are jointly evaluating them, we fail to do enough record keeping.
          Pictured is HH Pink Martini with HH Serenity behind it. Both seem to be pretty good seed parents. Serenity was hand crossed(line bred)and the result was a 7 foot tall red waterlily with very good form.

          Teddahlia "You should have seen this one before it went over the hill,."

          I love this. "The one that got away!" dahlia style.

            10 days later

            We need some posts on these frigid winter days. 28F this morning. Does this seedling look like Kilburn Glow?

            k like Kilburn Glow?

            As far as I can remember, Yes it does. It is also very pretty and I would be delighted to grow it. And it was 24 degrees here this morning which makes your 28 sound balmy! The days have been beautiful lately with clear skies and sparkly frosts in the morning, and that big full moon moving across the sky at night.

            Speaking of the full moon… did anyone see the rainbow ring around it this morning? There were actually 2 if you look closer. Lasted all of 6 minutes and then they were gone. Pretty while it lasted.
            It was a crisp 14 degrees here!

              AndreaB Wow what a spectacular capture! Lucky to have been in the perfect place at the perfect time - thanks for sharing with us!

                AndreaB We saw the halo around the moon here in Wisconsin. It was lovely, and quite chilly.

                    Emilyp oh good! I’m glad someone else got to see it.
                    I also wasn’t the only one up at the crack of Dawn 😁

                      12 days later

                      Dividing tuber clumps and always there are a few unknowns or the tag falls off. With a plant that just lost it's label and we "know" it is one of ours, we often just plant a couple of it in the second year seedling rows. Once in while you make a glaring mistake and I had planted one of these into the second year and evaluated it with glowing remarks about the color and form. Then I looked at the tag and it said: either a seedling or Dikara Superb" . Since it had perfect form and color I was crushed when I came to the conclusion it was Dikara Superb, one of my favorite dahlias.
                      Dikara Superb(UK: bred by Roy Rogers and Dikara is from the names of his daughters DIAna and KARen). Over in the UK they use the complimentary name "banker" to indicate it always does well in the shows and is fairly easy to grow and Dikara Superb is called a banker. And since we are on a hybridizing thread, it makes seeds although I have yet to get a home run from it's seedlings, they were really nice. .

                      I’ve been wanting to try Dikara Superb for a long time. I finally found a cutting of it that’s coming in the Spring. I’d obviously prefer a tuber…but sometimes you have to do what you have to do.

                      Dikara Superb seedlings: I forgot about a really nice seedling of it that has excellent form but is smaller. Dikara S. does have some nice seedlings(and as usual you have to make sure it is crossed with a good one and it was in a row with other British stuff and our older FDs). Sheval Megan does not make seeds for us and Blyton Stella has very few if any seeds. 20th Ave Major was really nice but did not make seeds and it's breeder says he gets a single seed at times. One would think breeding small FDs and MBs was a walk in the park. 🌺

                      In the 2023 seedlings we labeled 60 seedlings as waterlilies Not quite 50% of the seedlings we kept were waterlies. This was expected as the seeds we planted were from waterlies in about the same ratio. People are interested in color and the chart shows how many of what color. If you add dark red to the red, it was the most common color followed by orange. White had 6 and that is a nice number. Note that despite our good intentions there was only one purple seedling(a very nice one).

                      Sorry, I am not posting pictures but as usual will dribble out some pictures to spice up the site.

                      Teddahlia Very nice, I was hoping you would post a picotee. It is one of my favorite traits and a breeding goal for me next year. I have only one picotee in my waterlily bed planned for next year, as there are not many picotee waterlies around. I hope that it readily shares that trait. In your experience, is picotee is an elusive trait, or is it just certain colors combining to create that look?

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