Bessie
I had one dahlia bed that had afternoon shade. Another dahlia bed in a different part of my yard was in full sun. I would see tons of bee action in the sunny part of the yard and think “perfect time to do some hand crossing”. I would then make some crosses in both the sunny dahlia bed and the shady dahlia bed.
One plant I focused a decent chunk of time into crossing (ivanetti) was in the shady dahlia bed. I hand crossed it with 4 different varieties and it made me zero seeds. I’m wondering now to myself if this could be due to cooler temps during crossing since it was in the shady bed or if it just doesn’t make seeds, or if it just doesn’t make seeds with the flowers I tried to pair it with. In my mind bees out = good temps and timing for hand crossing. But I guess I should have thought about the different mini temperature zones within the yard.
However when those same crosses were reversed and ivanetti was the pollen parent instead of seed parent 2/4 of the other plants all located in the sunny bed made (what appears to me) to be pollinated seed.
Then again I’ve had this same scenario happen with my full sun plants I crossed as well. Cross a pair both ways so each one has chance to act as seed and pollen parent but then only one plant makes seeds. Maybe I’m in denial because I love ivanetti and wanted seeds from it. I will relocate all my plants to full sun next year and see if that changes anything. Also I’ve said before a good chunk of my crosses were not even close to ideal situations. Limited pollen, not repeating the cross multiple times, it’s my first year attempting this, etc. Soooo has anyone gotten seeds from Ivanetti ?
