With a large market garden, do I need to be overly concerned about cross pollination is this year's harvest? (I know I do, if I am going to save seeds) My garden will include several varieties of tomatoes, beans, peppers, melons, squash and cucumbers, which I think are the most prone to cross pollination. A good portion will be OP. Would any cross pollination be obviously noticable when harvesting, or in the taste, or a combination of both?
Cross Pollination Question
I would believe that the seeds in a tomato for example would belong to the next generation but the tomato itself would belong to this generation so would be what ever it was supposed to be. This about an animal. The baby will be the result of it's parents, but the uterus it grows in will have the characteristics of the mothers genetics.
Even though we eat bean seeds it shouldn't be a problem because beans pollinate themselves before the flowers open. I think corn can be a problem because the kernels we do eat are from the next generation and will have the traits of the cross breeding. The recommendation is to either stagger tassel out times or plant some distant apart or don't miss standard Se, SH2 etc type corns. I hope this helps -Doug
Doug, Thanks. Yes, that's very helpful.
Beans will X poll. and it is very obvious on the pods. I've ended up with stripped pods because I sowed purple and green next to each other, same with peppers. I've seen squash that looked like a X between Zuke and yellow. It looked really strange but tasted fine.