Hand, open pollination?

[Doug9345]

You can always bag blossoms.

[dice]

I do not bag blossoms, and my crossing rate from bees has run less
than 5%. Bagging blossoms works, as long as you do not end up
bagging an F1 without knowing it. I see the best protection as checking
what I got against pictures and descriptions of what other people
get for the same cultivar, and growing multiple plants of the same
cultivar in the same year. There are nearly always *mostly*
self-pollenated seeds in traded packets. Commercial packets can
go either way: usually they are all what they say they are, but there
have been incidents where a seed company was selling a wrong
variety in bulk. Every seed in a packet that anyone bought that
year supplied by that company was not what it said on the packet.

In traded packets, if you grow 4 plants, they will usually all be the
right variety (if that is what the person that you traded with had
to begin with), and if you get a chance hybrid, it is only one out of
the 4. With any luck, the fruit is radically different, and you know
as soon as the first one ripens that is a bee-made hybrid. With PLs,
an RL leaf is a dead giveaway.

But, you know, stuff happens.

[WVTomatoMan]

• I don't bag blossoms and have experienced a less than 5% cross rate.
• Generally speaking tomatoes pollinate before the blossom opens. That's why folks that I know that do crossing (including me) emasculate prior to the flower opening.
• There is a debate as to whether the correct term for tomatoes is self pollinating or self fertile. This is due to very low fruit set rate when no wind or sonicating insects are present (e.g. in greenhouses).
• Taylor's subscribes to the 50 year rule I mentioned in my earlier post. Thanks for posting that.

Randy

[CapnChkn]

Ready?

I just moved the current 9 hives next to where the no-till setup I'm trying to figure out (some of this with Redbaron's help!) is. So you can get some idea why I'm antsy about keeping straight gene lines. It's Organic, no monoculture, so planting an acre of squash to get seed is just asking for insect or disease trouble, and I'm learning permaculture.

I'm told tomatoes are usually OK if kept 10 feet from other cultivars because of the self-fertility thing. As you may know, the pollen is contained in long tubes with smooth grains. The natural pollinator for tomatoes are small, smaller than a fly, stingless honeybees from Central America, which dislodge the pollen by sonification.

The bee positions herself in the flower and then vibrates her flight muscles at a pitch that causes the pollen to drop down the tube and then harvests it. There aren't any real pollinators for Tomatoes this far north, though bumblebees, whom also buzz pollinate, will take care of them in greenhouses.

Apis Mellifera, the bee we're most familiar with, is vegetarian and uses pollen as a protein source. Mellifera usually feeds from one source. Clover, Poplar, Squash; forages it until the source runs out, then seeks another. Bees don't pay attention to cultivars though, so if you grow butternut squash, and pumpkin, you'll have to pollinate by hand if you want the seed.

I've never seen my bees on Peppers, Eggplants, or Tomatoes. Zucchini because the flowers close before they get to them, and so on. They don't pollinate corn, they gather the pollen and from other grass sources.

We beekeepers map local blooms, and mark "flows" so we can determine when we can harvest honey. Bees will surprise the heck out of you. We had a two day 70 F (20 C) period in January. Freezes for weeks before and after. I took the opportunity to check my girls, and they had the combs 3/4 full of nectar! I cannot tell you from where, but my beekeeper neighbor thinks it was chickweed, I think it was maple. Bees collect pollen from frozen flowers all winter.

Mellifera will forage 90% within 1/4 mile of the hive, when pikin'z get slim, will fly as far as 8 miles. They have hairy little bodies to get pollen stuck to them and will come back to the hive stained the color of whatever they've been foraging, though usually they comb it off and glue it to their hind legs. This is comparable to cats licking themselves clean, and that residual pollen is what gets into the female structures and fertilizes. Flower structures are evolved to take advantage of this, sometimes the pollinator is unique to that plant.

Are we having fun yet?

[CapnChkn]

Yep, no regulation. I read through a number of listings for seeds. One guy put HEIRLOOM in every listing, like:

BLACK BEAUTY SILVER QUEEN HYBRID PLUM OKRA! HEIRLOOM

One guy calls himself Heirloomseedguy, I asked him what the source of his seed was, and he replied, "Please clarify your question??? Otherwise my answer would be a tomato fruit........thank you"

I'm proposing what has already been suggested in this thread by Doug9345, to separate what these terms actually represent.

Open Pollinated = The way nature intended
Hand Pollinated = Human help
Control Pollinated = Bagged, Tagged, Dragged
Manipulate Pollinated = Gathered pollen from proper source and multiple donors. Bagged blossoms. Self-fertility left the way it may happen in OP.
Feel free to embellish, I understand the science, but not the practice.

I'm doing the organic thing, and that means I have to plant in ways to attract the predators of pests, separate populations to avoid disease transfer. I can't plant in blocks so large as to keep open pollinated genetic lines straight. Alternatively I could purchase new seed, but then that seed wouldn't be optimal for my area.

Gathering similar pollen from multiple sources, self fertility, and "one on one" cross pollination wouldn't create a single genetic combination any more than a room full of white cats will produce offspring that all act the way the parents do. Crazy as some of this sounds, it's all sexual reproduction. All that will happen is similarity. If all the variety were clones, they would be wearing a proverbial target for disease and pests.

[Redbaron]

I am pretty sure you are over thinking tomato pollination. Must be the Bee Keeper in you. If the tomatoes are outside in the wind and elements they will pollinate themselves. You have a greater chance dropping a seed you saved in the wrong envelope than getting a natural cross in most cases.

Squash? Now that's a different subject.

[Doug9345]

Originally Posted by CapnChkn

Feel free to embellish, I understand the science, but not the practice.

I agree with Red Baron about you are over thinking tomato pollination.

You are also trying to over complicate the open pollination question. There is basically only two questions to answer. If I save seed from from a variety pollinate by that variety will the offspring be identical with the parents or not. If so then it's an open pollinated. If then it's not open pollinated.

If it's not open pollinated, is it in it's first generation after the cross(F1). If it is then it's a hybrid.

If you answered no to the first two the it's an unstable variety.

All the rest come down to Techniques for producing seed that meets your needs. What techniques you use depend on what your situation and desire are. Every situation will demand its own mix of techniques.

If I am saving tomato seed for my own use. I'd pick the best performing tomato(s) from the plant(s) toward the middle of the group and be good. The other thing I'd do is to know exactly what the characteristics of the varieties I was saving seed from. With that knowledge I can not save seed from off type plants.


If you want to do squash the easiest way, grow a C Maxima variety for the pumpkin, a butternut for winter squash, and zucchini or a yellow variety for a summer squash. If you need to grow both zucchini and another summer squash you are going to have to do something to keep them from cross pollinating.



When it comes to seed saving you need to get you hands on a book called Seed to Seed by Suzanne Ashworth.

[CapnChkn]

LOL! I'm not over-thinking the tomato pollination problem! I pollinate my tomatoes by walking through the patch and shaking all the vines!

But you're right Scott, beekeepers have more gimmicks than any group except computer geeks. Ask 10 beekeepers the same question and you'll get 12 answers.

Stvrob was fretting:

Now you got me worried about saving seed. Maybe I have become part of the problem? I don't have much space between varieties, and I just assume that tomatoes are self pollinating and dont consider that the bees are in there mucking everything up occasionally.

Now I'm not just talking about Tomatoes. I'm worrying about all my vegetable varieties. Trading seeds, Selling, and so on. I'm also growing for market (fingers crossed.) so I will need to have several kinds of Zucchini.

See? How do I represent my product? If I say it's "Open Pollinated," what are the advantages, and disadvantages? If I say the seed is "OP," will I be lying if I've put a bag over the blossom? When I'm talking to a seed vendor, will I know if the seed has been possibly contaminated with unwanted characteristics? Thank you Doug, I will have to get my hands on that book!

That's why I am complicating an already confusing issue with a new category of pollination, the "Manipulated." It may be unnecessary, but that's why I'm asking questions...

[macmex]

I like the suggestion about reading Seed to Seed by Suzanne Ashworth. That's a good book which would clear up a good deal of confusion.

I've been saving seed, with the intention of preserving varieties, since the early 80s; and have understood "heirloom" to mean a variety passed down by non-commercial means for at least 50 years. After that, it might get passed around commercially and still be called an heirloom. I'd be tolerant of the term being used of a variety passed down through a family for say, 30 years. But it's crazy to call all the open pollinated varieties heirlooms.

Among seed savers "open pollinated" has simply meant "non-hybrid." I actually prefer the term over heirloom. There are so many very worthy open pollinated varieties out there, which do not strictly fit the definition of "heirloom," as it is used more traditionally.

As to cross pollination of tomatoes and beans, well, location, climate and pollinators all affect how much this occurs. I remember growing tomatoes and beans with nary a cross, for years. But when we moved to Tahlequah, OK; all that changed. Now I have to take extra precautions. Apparently drought and heat cause some plants to be more prone to insect cross pollination. Last summer, for instance, I observed my honey bees avidly working pepper flowers!

George

[WVTomatoMan]

Capn - I agree with the others, you're overthinking this. Being a musician I'm going to do a music theory analogy. One of the jazz greats once said there are only two kinds of chords, major and minor. There are only two kinds of tomatoes, open polinated and hybrid. If you bag blossoms of an OP at the right time of course it is open pollinated. In fact that is one of the ways you guarantee that it is open pollinated. Like I said before open pollinated means it comes back true to type. Either it comes back true to type or it doesn't. It really is that simple.


Randy

[Redbaron]

Originally Posted by CapnChkn

See? How do I represent my product?

You say best gosh darnoodley homegrown tomatoes you ever tasted, then give 'em one to sample and ask, See? How many pounds do you want?

[Doug9345]

Originally Posted by CapnChkn

See? How do I represent my product? If I say it's "Open Pollinated," what are the advantages, and disadvantages? If I say the seed is "OP," will I be lying if I've put a bag over the blossom? When I'm talking to a seed vendor, will I know if the seed has been possibly contaminated with unwanted characteristics? Thank you Doug, I will have to get my hands on that book!

That's why I am complicating an already confusing issue with a new category of pollination, the "Manipulated." It may be unnecessary, but that's why I'm asking questions...

If the plant is an open pollinated variety to start with and you bag the blossoms before they have had a chance to be pollinated by bees, or wind or whatever its seeds is still open pollinated. If it's an unstable variety it most likely will still be an unstable variety, just less so if you are doing selections based on some criteria.

Let me give you an example with animals. If I buy a calf with certain parentage I don't ask and don't care if it's mother was artificially inseminated or they imported the bull and let him do his thing. It doesn't change the genetics of the offspring.

I think house cats would be even a better example. If I want kittens of a certain mother and father. It doesn't matter if I lock her in a bedroom to keep the four toms camped out under the window away or if I happen to live on an island and the two are the only cats there and are free to run around outside. It also doesn't change the parentage if she is the only cat on the island and I artificially inseminate her. Different techniques to the same end result.

The question you are asking is more about marketing than it is about plant science.
Red Barron is on the right track. How you market them will depend on your market and what you are marketing.

If you want to use the term Heirloom to get people stop and look then grow a couple that are definitely heirlooms.

Unless you deal with someone that is saving seed, marketing vegetables as open pollinated vs hybrid is mostly playing on their misconceptions and fears anyway. It should be perfectly possible to breed a hybrid that is every bit as good as an open pollinated one and maybe vice versa. I say maybe vice versa because I'm not sure there aren't traits that are hetrozygous and those by their nature have to be hybrid. There just isn't any economic reason to.


How do I know if will get contaminated seed from a vendor. The same way you know they will send you the seed,will it take 3 days 3 weeks or 3 months, or that it will sprout. It comes down to reputation and your experience with them. As long as they are aware of the potential of a problem, have some plan to reduce the problem and monitor if they have it problem they should be fine. If you buy enough seed long enough you will get seed that isn't what it should be.

[dice]

We could call them "fullly homozygous" or "may still have some
heterozygous genes." While that may be accurate, it would not
be a very effective marketing technique outside of a rather small
niche market.