Pollinating Tomatoes

[RichardB.]

Does anyone have experience doing this, I will be trying to do this this year for the first time. I will be reading up on it and watching youtube video's on how to do this. Would like to make my own cross with tomatoes. Anybody know how to find out if a cross has already been done? Thanks

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by RichardB.

Does anyone have experience doing this, I will be trying to do this this year for the first time. I will be reading up on it and watching youtube video's on how to do this. Would like to make my own cross with tomatoes. Anybody know how to find out if a cross has already been done? Thanks

Richard, there's lots of information about this in the Cross talk Forum and yes, many here make their own crosses which are detailed in that Forum.

The link below is from the third sticky down in that Forum, links posted by Mischka, and if it were me I'd start with the links that start with kdm first and then proceed. The owner of that website has wonderful pictures detailing all the steps involved in making crosses, then what to do with the saved F2 seeds and much more about gene segregation, etc

I'll link to those links here but there are many many other threads in that Cross talk Forum that will also be of help.

http://www.tomatoville.com/showthread.php?t=45

[dice]

The professional way to collect pollen is to cut a bunch of flowers off
of a plant, put them in a screened shaker, and shake the pollen out
onto some flat surface where you can scrape it into a vial.

That requires sacrificing potential fruit, though. I do it by holding a small
piece of plastic wrap under a flower and vibrating the stem of the flower
with an electric toothbrush. The pollen comes out of the flower (unless
a bee has beaten me to it) and sticks to the plastic wrap. (This is Patrina
Pepperina's method.)

Then I take the plastic wrap to an already trimmed bud and lightly
brush the pistil of the trimmed flower with it. I will usually repeat this
at least 3 times on a trimmed bud: once when I first trim it, again
a couple of days later, and again a couple of days after that. (It might
not be sticky enough to hold the pollen or mature enough to form
pollen tubes the first day after trimming it, but within a week it would
have opened on its own. Skipping the first day after trimming is not wise
because it might already be ready to pollenate and some enthusiastic bee vibrating a nearby flower in a light breeze might pollute the cross.)

Pistils on trimmed buds are very delicate, and it is easy to break them off,
either when trimming the bud or when applying pollen to it. Doing it
requires steady hands, concentration, and a calm (not windy) day. I use
a combination of pointy surgical scissors (for the outside parts) and
tweezers (to pull off the pollen-producing anthers around the style,
the "center post" that has the pistil on the end of it).

In the diagram on this page, the pistil is called "the stigma":
http://www.kdcomm.net/~tomato/Tomato/xingtom.html
So I cut off the sepals and petals, pull off the anthers, and
only that green thing in the middle remains, which is pollenated
by dusting or rubbing pollen on the end of it. It gets sticky when
it is ready to be pollenated, so that pollen will stick to it.

[RichardB.]

I have never pollinated a tomato plant. I have with pumpkins, with a pumpkin a day before the flower opens you cover it with a baggie or paper cup, if not a bee can come along and pollinate it, then you will not be able to pollinate it with another plant, the bees did there work. Question: It says to pollinate and then come back a few days later and do it again, inbetween times could'nt a bee come and pollinate it? do you cover it inbetween pollinating. Thanks

[travis]

If you emasculate the tomato blossom, totally remove the yellow pedals and the anther cones surrounding the pistil in the middle of the structure, bees will not be attracted to the flower any longer.

You may want to emasculate or totally remove any opened or opening flowers on the same cluster to ensure they do not attract bees and the action of the bees accidentally blow pollen onto your emasculated stigma.

However, in any case, to ensure obtaining only F1 seeds, only tag and harvest the fruit that you have hand pollinated. To avoid confusion I totally remove any flowers on the same truss which holds the ova I hand pollinated unless I hand pollinated them also with the same pollen.

[bcday]

What travis said. Before you pollinate, you remove the petals and the anther cone. Bees find blossoms by looking for the colorful petals. If there are no petals to attract the bees and no anthers to reward them with pollen, they go elsewhere.

[erlyberd]

I'm with Richard B on this one. Would love how to do it but I'm a hands on guy. Who lives in CT that can show me how to emasculate a tomato flower properly! I think having a microscope attached to these tired eyes of mine might help!

[dice]

The buds to be pollenated are trimmed before they open. Sometimes
they have already self-pollenated anyway, before the flower opens,
but usually a day or two before they would open by themselves is
early enough. In the pictures at the bottom of the page below,
the terminology is a little different (the pollen-producing anthers are
called "stamens"), but the last picture is how a trimmed bud looks
when it is ready to have pollen applied (also called "emasculated bud",
as the male pollen-producing parts have been removed):
http://www-plb.ucdavis.edu/labs/rost...e/flranat.html

If the flowers already look like the 3rd to last and 2nd to last pictures,
that is too mature to use as the female flower where the crossed fruit
will be produced (there is a good chance that flower has already
self-pollenated). You want flowers to trim that still look all green
on the outside, where the green sepals are still tightly wrapped
around the yellow petals of the flower.

I like to trim 2-3 buds on the same cluster to cross-pollenate with
the same pollen.

[travis]

Originally Posted by dice

I like to trim 2-3 buds on the same cluster to cross-pollenate with the same pollen.

Yes!



(Nothing more to say, just adding words to achieve required message length.)

[doublehelix]

Originally Posted by RichardB.

Does anyone have experience doing this...

It doesn't have to be this difficult. I made a video that takes you through the process. I spend a lot of time doing this and it works.

It is the second video listed.
http://doublehelixfarms.com/videos

I also want to add that just like you can't get pregnant once you are already pregnant, once you have pollinated something, it will not get pollinated again by an insect or wind.

I would suggest a plan, and read up on the genes that will get you to that result. The shotgun approach rarely produces anything as good as a focused project. It will also reduce the number of plants you have to grow in order to find what you are looking for. The more you breed, the more garden space becomes sacred ground.

[RichardB.]

Thanks for posting picts and videos. A electric tooth brush works I see, can you just tap or shake it also.

[dice]

Originally Posted by RichardB

A electric tooth brush works I see, can you just tap or shake it also.

You could, but the electric toothbrush or other vibrating device is more
effective. (Someone once mentioned buzzing them with an electric razor,
and there are professional electric vibrating pollinating wands that
greenhouses use to compensate for the lack of wind and bees, probably
available from nursery supply wholesalers.)

[doublehelix]

I paid $1 for my electric toothbrush at one of those stores where everything is a buck.

I would stick with the toothbrush.

[RichardB.]

Thanks, I will be trying to find one cheaply/