Re: Pollen Strike Rates

I can't tell what percent of takes I'm going to get this year, but it won't
be nearly as good as those being posted.  I don't count it anything as a
take unless it has seeds and I'm still waiting to determine how many of the
pods are going to be balloon pods.  Quite a few, I think, since I cheated by
using an auxin on many of the pods.  My notebook has 504 listed attempted
crosses, but that's short of what was actually made.  When a plant had
multiple blooms, they would all get pollen but only one entry for that date.
I do use a brush most of the time and I do (nearly always) use all three
stigmas.  In my climate of low humidity, warm temps and near constant wind a
stigma facing exposure to either wind or sun will dry up pretty fast.  Those
turned away stay fresh a bit longer.

I have quit trying to get too much pollen on the stigma.  I was told pollen
acts as a desiccant on the stigma, so too much pollen applied was too much
of a good thing under my conditions.  That made sense since I was getting a
higher rate of pods on blooms where I was cleaning off excess pollen from
the brush on a bloom.  When I started applying the advice, I got more takes.

Takes are additionally limited by the kind of pollenating I attempt.  AB
crosses are varied among themselves and, of course, I have TBs thrown into
the mix as well.  Unbalanced chromosome sets combined with compatibility
issues are not going to give me any bragging rights about the percentages I
get.

Donald Eaves
donald@eastland.net
Texas Zone 7b, USA




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