Cross pollination

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Baz

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Cross pollination
« on: April 23, 2007, 08:36 »
I know you mustn't put different varietys of sweetcorn in adjacent area's........but hows about runner beans, can differenr varietys be grown side by side?
Baz.........
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corndolly

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Cross pollination
« Reply #1 on: April 23, 2007, 08:48 »
I've always grown different varieties together and not noticed any cross pollination problems.
Growing organic fruit and vegetables

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pwgun

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Cross pollination
« Reply #2 on: April 23, 2007, 09:17 »
hope so as
 ive done it.
When the sun shines i dig,
When rain pours i dig
When the wind blows---I SURF.

Allan

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Baz

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Cross pollination
« Reply #3 on: April 23, 2007, 13:50 »
Thanks........I got some odd packets/half full, i'll be able to use those up

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sausage

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Cross pollination
« Reply #4 on: April 23, 2007, 13:52 »
This may be a very dumb question but I don't know the answer to it so i'll ask it anyway.

What happens when you get cross pollination?

 :oops:  :roll:  8)

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wellingtons

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« Reply #5 on: April 23, 2007, 14:28 »
... in mixed variety packets, so they're obviously OK to grow side by side.

And cross pollination only really matters if you're saving the seed.  To be honest I grew three different types of runner beans last year and other than the colour of the flowers I couldn't really tell which was which when it came to picking time!

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Zak the Rabbit

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Cross pollination
« Reply #6 on: April 23, 2007, 14:51 »
cross pollination of sweetcorn is a risk because they are wind pollinated - the male flower is at the top, the female flower half way down the stem, the wind transfers the pollen.

Its less of a worry with insect pollinated plants. Im not exactly sure why.

in answer to sausage's question, and assuming no prior knowledge of such things-

When cross pollination occurs, genetic traits of each parent variety are transferred. These may be recessive and cause no problem, or may be dominant traits and alter the nature of the resulting plant. This is exactly what is done, under controlled conditions, to create hybrid varieties. If a hybrid variety (an F1 say) cross pollinates with a lesser variety, the advantages that the hybrid has can be lost. As mentioned this is of most worry if you are saving seeds for the next generation of plant, but can also cause abnormalities in the seeds or fruit that are noticable if that is the part of the plant that is desired, as it is in the case of maize (sweetcorn). There are many examples on the internet of the effects on the cobs of cross pollination, and in fact maize cobs were used as the example in my studies, of the effects of genetic alterations.

Of course the most famous example of cross pollination effects are the studies carried out by Gregor Mendel on pea plants, which led to our knowledge of hereditry.

If you think about it, you are a specific variety of your species (homo sapiens sapiens for most of you), and your partner (im assuming a F/M sexual partnership here. No disrespect to anyone intended but its the only type that works for hereditry studies) is another specific variety. If you have a child, you are effectively cross-pollinating your variety (from your parents genes) with your partners, the result is that your offspring share genetic traits with you both. Some may increase desirable factors, for instance my son seems to have perfect vision, which may be a cancellation of the trait both me and my wife have of short sight. Other variations can result in genetic disorders. Exactly the same occurs in plants. Specially bred hybrids will have very desirable characteristics (my F1 sweetcorn for example has been developed for increased sugar content) that can be cancelled by cross-pollination with a lower variety.

hope thats sufficiently simple for you. Not exactly an easy subject genetics! :D  (and of course hoping thats what you wanted to know, and your still awake :lol: )
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sausage

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Cross pollination
« Reply #7 on: April 23, 2007, 14:58 »
Thanks for the info!

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ted_woodley

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Cross pollination
« Reply #8 on: April 24, 2007, 08:17 »
I ignored the advice about sweetcorn cross-polination and planted mini sweetcorn plants at the opposite end of my allotment to a supersweet variety. About 30 % of the supersweets ended up as some sort of intermediate mutant with relatively few kernels which tasted of precisely nothing. You live and learn.

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GrannieAnnie

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Cross pollination
« Reply #9 on: April 24, 2007, 09:10 »
Talking about cross-pollination.  I didn't think chillies cross pollinated, but a thread by Aidy sometime ago said they do, so as I have 10 different varieties, and want to save my own seed again, how can I stop them cross pollinating?

I'm going to grow most of them inside, and have the polytunnel and 3 greenhouses, so I could grow a different variety in each place, but that's only 4.  We've got the biggish bags that the chook corn comes in.  if I put a 10 or 12 inch pot in each bag, with a different chilli in each pot, would that work?  or would the pollination still fly around and contaminate the others?  if you know what I mean??  or perhaps I could get some old net curtain hanging up to divide them from each other???

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Stevens706

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Cross pollination
« Reply #10 on: April 24, 2007, 12:49 »
Grannieannie One thing you can do is to select a flower, just as it opens, pollinate it by hand then bag the flower until it grows into the chilli.  You will only need to do this for enough seeds for next year.

Follow this link to a PDF book on seed saving

http://www.avrdc.org/pdf/seedbook.pdf
Paul



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