Re: Pollination- Heavy Hitter Question

Roger,

I cover the male and female flowers the night before with cheese cloth.
In the 991 there went any immature seeds although I had 35 full sized seeds
that were hollow. 
I had great success with pollination this year.  This hasn't always been
the case over the last few years I have improved.  In the first few years I
hand pollinated my blossoms early in the morning because I had to be to
work at 6:00am.  It wasn't until I was talking with Pete Glasier about the
poor success rate I was having with fruit set he asked what time in the day
I was pollinating.  He then explained to me the pollen on the males isn't
ripe until the temperature warms up the blossom and the male blossom wants
to burst open when uncovered.  After looking at a male blossom in the early
morning I noticed there wasn't any loose pollen available on the stamen.
Later that same morning I saw hundreds of grains on the stamen.  From that
day on I made went to work late on pollination days. 
As for how many males, I usually use 3 male blossoms any more than that my
back starts to hurt from being stooped over for so long.  Besides there is
usually so much pollen on the female blossom it starts to pile up.  
I was talking to Al Eaton earlier this year about seed count.  He said
around 500 seeds is about average in a big pumpkin.  Now I haven't done any
research on this but I would have to agree with his thoughts.
Jon 

At 03:56 PM 12/16/99 -0800, you wrote:
>Jon, I was wondering what pollination method you were using and what kind
>of results you are getting as far as seed numbers and quality?  I started
>using multiple males last season.  When I have males that are not ready to
>release the pollen I juice them and then smear them all over the top and
>sides in the unopened female, hoping the pollen will ripen at the same rate
>as the female.  I got 740 good uniform smallish seed today from a 70 lb
>fruit set in Mid- Sept.  I left them in the pumkin to help mature them.
>Roger
>
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