Re: Pollination and seeds
- To: pumpkins@mallorn.com
- Subject: Re: Pollination and seeds
- From: "* A* C* <a*@ecst.csuchico.edu>
- Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1998 11:52:24 -0700 (PDT)
Contained in John Heilman's latest missive was:
> Before I read some posts here I naively thought that if I pollinated one
> of my plants with another, the resulting fruit would be have
> characteristics of both parents, just like humans. But I think I have
> read that the mixed characteristics will only show up in the seeds, so
> no results of crossing until next year.
> Which is it?
Definitely the latter. The characteristics of a pumpkin are determined
by the seed you planted and environmental factors such as weather, water,
fertilizer, amount of light, etc. The pollen you pollinated with doesn't
come into effect until the next season, when the seeds you fertilized
with the pollen produce their own pumpkins. You can think of it this
way: if you pollinate a pumpkin fruit with pollen from several different
plants (which you can do, leading to different seeds from the same
fruit yielding differing plants next year) which pollens's characteristics
would win?
If you don't have sufficient pollination for a fruit, some of the seeds
won't be fertilized which in other cucurbits such as zucchini and
watermelons leads to small, misshapen fruits. I would expect the same
to be true of an atlantic giant but as long as you have sufficient viable
pollen the characteristics of the plant the pollen came from don't matter
until next season.
Shaun
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