Hybridizers: how are gerbera pollinated?, 0 by ecomorph

ecomorph wrote:
I produce seeds for my garden and plants to share. I learned how to pollinate gerber flowers by watching an insect years ago, will be 65 this year.
I don't pollinate for a large quantity of seeds, so I use a toothpick, I've also used a size 00 brush to pickup pollen from a pollen ready flower with fresh florets and transfer to a receptive flower with fresh styles/stigma both of which is produced each day.
Attaching two images.
Closeup5 (orange flower) shows a blue toothpick with pollen grains (yellow dots) being extracted from the florets.
Closeup6 (yellow flower) shows styles, the stigma at the end is where the pollen is put onto, in the outer portion, you can see two styles at the end of the blue toothpick.
Best time to polinate is in the early afternoon when you're able to extract the pollen from the florets and the stigma is still fresh, not brown in color.
Here is an excellent article by Brian Johnston. His close up imagery is excellent!
http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag/indexmag.html?http://www...