AG Stigmas
- Subject: AG Stigmas
- From: H* E* P*
- Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 11:11:44 -0700
Today I pollinated my first 3 AG females.
In corn, you must have a sucessful pollen grain on each of the 300
silks of one ear. Same is true for each of the many sigmas in a
strawberry or Rubus flower, sunflower, etc.
I realize I do not know the situation for Cucurbit. I realize that if
no pollen gets onto a segment of an AG stigma there will be no seeds in
that carpel (as in a slice of an orange or apple). In lillies, apples
and other fruits having 3 to 5 carpels, the fused stigmas make a tiny
structure and you can easily get every section of the stimga pollinated.
WHAT ABOUT AG
Will there be unfertilized Ovules (eggs) unless I get pollen on the
bottom of the sigma? Is the stigma analagous to the fused 300 silks of a
corn ear so that a sucessful pollen grain must germinate on each tiny
area serving an ovule?
MY METHODS
Before dark last nite, I taped male flowers closed and picked some to
make a boquet of blossoms. This morning not one blossom had opened.
Under 7 to 15X magnification, I examined flowers after tearin away some
petal. Every pollen ridge of the stamen has opened. I counted 20,000 to
30,000 pollen grains in each AG male. At 11:00 am I looked at non-taped
male flowers and counted 20 pollen grains per flower (plus about 100 in
crevises(sp) where the insects did not reach).
The taped male flowers had slightly better heaping of the pollen
grains, but I will pick my male flowers the nite before.
Cross Labels: As usual, I cut aluminum soft drink cans into 1.5 x 8 cm
labels and used an empty ball point pen to write numbers on each label
(1 to 17) punched a hole at the top end of each label and put them on a
large safety pin.
After dark, I studied my taped females and planned my crosses. If I
lacked a desired male, I went to garden with flashlight and picked a
male of the desired genotype and added it to my bouquet. A piece of tape
on the stem of the male flower gives the plant number such as ( S1 or
S13). S13 is the 13th plant in row S.
My computer mating record stores tag number, Dam plant, Sire plant,
The computer knows the fruit source of each plant and what is known of
the genotype.
I have a manual list of the crosses I want to make and following each
is the cross number tag of the matings which have been made.
For my corn matings it was easy to keep tract of thousands of ears
(millions of grains). One can do the same for AG, but I can only plant a
few seeds of AG each year. After my difficulties with with borer this
year, I will not be planting 100 seeds next year!
--
Harold Eddleman Ph.D. Microbiologist. i*@disknet.com
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