Hybridizers: It can be fun to breed your own zinnias - Part 6, 5 by Zen_Man

Zen_Man wrote:
[quote=\"Pistil\"]ZM do you cut off the pollen florets of the flower you want to receive the pollen, so it will not be self pollinated?
Do you use a magnifying glass?[/quote]
Hi Pistil,

It has been a while since we talked. If a zinnia is good enough to use as a female breeder, I consider it also good enough to use as a male breeder and I pluck its pollen florets and use them as brushes to apply to stigmas of other female breeders. Any overlooked pollen florets will produce a selfed floret seed, which can also be useful.

I do not use a magnifying glass for pollination work, because I don\'t need to. I am still a bit near-sighted and my progressive eyeglasses actually further improve my closeup vision. I do have a pair of head-mounted magnifiers that I use for green seed surgery to extract zinnia embryos. But I don\'t do a lot of that.

ZM