As you can see from the many ovules that have not germinated or grown... this was a great success. 137 seeds were collected from this ones pod sibling while only 23 seeds were collected from this cross. This is what exciting for me. Now, to see if I actually get a larger phenotype from my F2 from this cross versus my more plentiful siblings cross.
This message was edited Nov 15, 2008 3:11 PM
Seed pod with seeds inside so you can get an idea of the size of the few seeds that were in this tiny pod.
Facinating Eric. What method did you use to pollinate that bloom. Was it just the straight 50/50 you were teaching us about or did you add another stage in too?
I so excited for you!! Wiggling away on my seat here. : )
50/50 mixtures are nice, but I tend to rely more on serial dilutions at the stage I'm at. If you take 10 (flava) pollen anthers and scrape them into a pollen tube and then scrape 10 (aurea) pollen anthers into that same tube... chances are your not going to get a 50/50 mixture as each species varies in amount given at any one time. So, you make an arbitrary call and guesstimate what you think is approximately 50/50 when you mix the first batch. You label this tube 1flx1au for instance.
Next, presuming you are working with the number 10+10 for your 1:1 dilution you set up a series of pollen tubes each with 10 anthers of flava pollen scraped into them. You keep these in order and label them:
1:2; 1:4; 1:8; 1:16; 1:32; 1: 64, 1:128; 1: 256; 1:512; 1:1024
You then go back to your 1:1 pollen tube that you have been letting dry with the top off and put the top on. Tap it back and forth as you turn it in all directions. Now, I utilize a series of secondary empty pollen containers to pour/tap the pollen back in forth as well as this enables you to put the mouths of them up to each other to allow more flow as well as allowing you to more accurately judge half of the volume that you want to keep in your 1:1 and the other half of your 1:1 is then poured into your 1:2. 1:2 is then mixed in the same manner and half of this 1:2 is poured into your 1:4. You repeat this procedure until you have gotten at least as far as your 1:1024. This method is helpful if your intent is to get flava genes into an arborea cross or conversely, if your trying to get all of the aurea pollen genotypes to pollinate an ovule via this method and minimal pollination techniques. Either way, your killing two birds with one stone potentially. Now, if your trying like a 4n x 2n or 3n type cross, I would skip this method altogether and simply load up the pollen as pure as I could get it and hope for the best on multiple pods as well.
I'm just getting into pollinating Eric, and enjoyed reading this thread. Thanks for sharing!
