Q.If A Female Flower Is Pollinated Correctly, Will It Go Into The Male Stage Which Is Next Or What Will It Look Like?
It is difficult to keep track of each flower I try to pollinate but I have had not success this entire season. I don’t want to take a male stage that might be pollinated and cut if off to gather pollen. So how do I know if the female is pollinated or not. What does a pollenated flower look like the next day or two?
Certified GKH Gardening Expert
This really depends on the type of plant Plants that are self pollinating are extremely difficult to cross pollinate by hand. They must be kept in a very controlled indoor environment, and you must ensure that it receives little to none of its own pollen. This is nearly impossible to do without certain knowledge of sterile practice and a few bits of lab equipment. The option, here, to the home grower will be pollinating two flowers by hand. Much of the pollen will be self pollinated, but some will cross pollinate. The problem with this is that you must germinate and grow out as many seedlings as you can to maturity in order to know which traits all of them have. This is best done by the hundreds in many cases.
If this is a plant that produces male and female flowers at different times, like corn, then this is much easier to control. a male flower raceme will show up from the top of the plant, first. Then the female tassels. Planting at different times will ensure a crop. However, hand pollinating two different types of corn is easy. You will want to stagger the planting to where females flowers are showing on one type, and male flowers are showing at the same time, but on the other type. Then you can pollinate by hand.
Some other plants can be, either, male or female only. In this case, you will need to pollinate a female flower with male pollen.
Typically, you will at least know when it is pollinated by some pollen, whichever source that is, when the female fruit starts to swell, or if the flowers fall off leaving the fruiting portion. If the entire bloom falls of, then it did not take the pollen.
Unfortunately, this is not a straightforward process.
