View Single Post
Old June 10, 2018   #5
bower
Tomatovillian™
 
bower's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2012
Location: Newfoundland, Canada
Posts: 6,793
Default

The F1 will be normal leaf if mother or father is normal leaf, regardless.

Sometimes people choose to make the mother the PL when doing their first cross. That is only because, if the cross was not done properly and the mother plant self pollinated, you will know you made a mistake because the self pollinated plants from those seeds will be PL instead of RL.

Self pollination is not an issue if you emasculate the flowers at the right stage, when flowers are just opening and petals are still pale yellow not fully colored. It may take several days for the pistil to mature then and be ready to receive pollen. The tip becomes enlarged and sticky, and you can see that pollen is sticking to it by the bare line left after you drag it through pollen in your collector.

More common issues for failure of a cross which I have seen, the fragility of the pistil on some varieties. Some types simply make better mothers than others, maybe they are more tolerant of the "surgery" involved in making the cross. So it is worthwhile to try both plants as mothers, do several crosses on both, and some will likely take.
bower is offline   Reply With Quote