Pollen collection

I would like to suggest an experiment. I plan to try it, but those who
live in the south and already have pollen can do the experiment earlier
than we in the north. 
  I have hand pollinated a few pumpkins, but I remember nothing from
those instances of decades ago except that I got fruit. In pollinating
other plants, I have often had trouble finding pollen. Sometimes that is
genetic, some individual plants are not good pollen producers. 
  The main reason for absence of pollen is that bees and wasps carry it
away for food very early in the day. Therefore, plant breeders common
collect pollen before the anthers split open. If you examine anthers
(the yellow things dangling on the tips of filaments) in most plant
species, you find the anthers split open after dawn and about the time
the bees begin working (the bees know the right time). 
  Therefore, plant breeders commonly cut the male flower off before it
opens and carry it to the lab or living room where it is warm and dry. I
plan to try cutting the male flowers from the vine the evening before
they open.  I place them in petri dishes or saucers and some breeders
hang a light bulb above the drying male flowers. Since pumpkin flowers
get soft and watery, You may want to remove the filaments from the
sloppy petals, else I would leave them connected for the food the flower
will provide. 
  You may find this method gives you much more pollen. I always collect
my strawberry and blackberry flowers the day before they open and I use
a small camel hair brush to apply the pollen. 
  Pollen grains are so tiny, you may have plenty of pollen when the pile
appears barely visible.
  I have lots of trouble getting seeds from blackberry crosses. I think
the problem is with the drying of the female flower which must be opened
and emasculated prior to normal opening. 
  Keep in mind that removing the male flower early may not work for
pumpkin.
  The pollen grain easily sticks to the sticky stigma and germinates
sending out a tube which grows down the style to the ovules and finds
the tiny opening where the integuments (these mature into the seed
coats) do not cover the ovule.
-- 
Harold Eddleman Ph.D. Microbiologist.       i*@disknet.com 
Location: Palmyra IN USA; 36 kilometers west of Louisville, Kentucky
http://www.disknet.com/indiana_biolab



---------------------------------------------------------------------
To sign-off this list, send email to majordomo@mallorn.com with the
message text UNSUBSCRIBE PUMPKINS
Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index