Hi Daniel!

There's not much info about pollinating daffodils unless you're in the daffodil society - those people talk about it a lot! I can't find the contact info for the National Daffodil Association of Australia right now, but email me if you want more info. They are planning a world daffodil convention in Australia next season - hope I get to come down for it!

You can cross jonquils and daffodils since jonquils are a kind of daffodil...but most jonquils are sterile.

The American Daffodil Society has a databank that indicates the daffodils that are known to be fertile, whether seed or pollen. I'd be glad to look up the daffodils you grow to let you know what it says - your daffs would probably be gone before you could get your own copy right now.

But you should just go ahead and give it a try. You should find that the pollen will stick to the stigma of the bloom you want to get seeds from best early in the morning the first day or two that the bloom is open. Some people put sugar water on the stigma or lick it to help the pollen stick, but I've not found that to usually be necessary. You can usually look at the stigma and see if it looks fresh and moist and receptive to pollen.

As far as pollen goes, if it looks good and fluffy and is just starting to come loose, it should stick just fine. I've been told that "if it looks like good pollen, it probably is." Infertile daffodils will usually not have any real pollen in their flowers.

I like to pick one bloom of a daff I want to use pollen from and just rub the cup together on the potential seed parents. You will be able to see if the pollen is sticking or not.

Make a lot more crosses than you think you want because they will not all make seed, of course.

If you pick many daffodils for bouquets or anything, you might want to rip a couple of petals off the ones you want to leave for seed so they won't get picked by mistake. That will not affect the seed-making process. I find that you can write the name of the pollen parent on the stem of the seed parent with a ballpoint inkpen and it will usually stay there until you get ready to gather the seed. (This is assuming you are keeping up with the names of the crosses you make)

Just go for it - I'm getting my first seedling blooms the last couple of years and it's a ton of fun!

Oh yeah, forgot to say that you can search this forum for "daffodil" and see the previous information that's been posted about planting the seeds and storing pollen....Sandra

Thanks for the information Sandra, it was very helpful indeed. I'd already done as you suggested and just went ahead and made some crosses, plenty of pollen available and it seemed to stick easily, got some rain a couple of days afterwards but I'm sure it won't have caused any problems (except for some broken stems..)

This years attempt was just for a bit of fun. As my 4 year old son likes to "help" in the garden none of my daffodils now have the correct labels, I just made many random crosses, will be more organized in recording the parent names next year.

Daniel