An alternative to hand pollination

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linux_guile Pueblo, CO Jul 18, 2009

I love gardening and collecting various types of heirloom seeds, I also live in a 2 bedroom duplex and do all of my gardening in a family members back yard. This leaves me with several difficulties when it comes to saving seed and ensuring with relative certainty that the seed is pure. While it is fine to save seeds from plants that you know wont cross with each other it is rather difficult to save seeds from plants that easily cross such as the various members of the squash family.

Because I garden in a family members back yard it is not very possible to go over and hand pollinate my squash early in the morning when they are ready. I also have a very busy work schedule that does not permit me to check on the garden more than a few times a week, luckily for me my family is more than willing to water the garden as long as they are able to share in the bounty with me.

So here is the problem how can I ensure seed purity without being able to hand pollinate my squash? I’ve come up with a method that I call blossom isolation and am rather shocked that no one has thought of this before (at least not to my knowledge, or at least I’ve never come across it). Here is my method, suppose I am saving seeds from two types of summer squash, zucchini and scallop squash for instance, that are both flowering at the same time. First I will scout the plants for a female flower that will be opening the next morning and tag it with surveyors tape. Then I will remove all of the male flowers that will open the next morning from the other variety of squash that I am growing, thus ensuring that the only pollen that will be available to pollinate the female flower is pollen from the same cultivar. I now have with relative certainty a fruit that will grow to produce pure seeds to save. Also if I’m feeling adventurous I know that any female flowers that open the next day on the plant that I removed all of the male blossoms from will be pollinated from the male flowers of the other plant, thus producing a crosspollination and possibly an interesting hybrid.

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Farmerdill Augusta, GA(Zone 8a) Jul 18, 2009

That will work as long as no one else is growing that species of squash within a half mile. Bees carry pollen pretty good distances.

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linux_guile Pueblo, CO Jul 18, 2009

That's not really an issue in my garden as the nearest neighbor is about 3/4 of a mile away, however i can see how that might be an issue with other gardeners.

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