wind pollination vs. bee pollination

[Worth1]

I read through this and saw Carolyn beat me to it.

I will say butterflies and hummingbirds will hang around almost anything of color whether they get anything out of it or not.
if I wear a red shirt outside they drive me nuts.

Worth

[WVTomatoMan]

Originally Posted by carolyn137

Randy, I misunderstood her meaning of wind pollination iniially and she clarified that above and thenI answered her clarification saying in pretty much what you just said.

Perhaps you missed that.

Carolyn. where it's to go down to the high 30's tonight.

Well, uh, I sort of perhaps missed that. Here's the thing, I read the original post and responded to it without taking the time to read any of the other posts. Perhaps I should have take the time to do that. Perhaps I should have also taken the time to do this:

@habitat_gardener: Wind pollination (aka Anemophily) is a defined term used to describe pollination by wind. For certain types of plants their main form of pollination is by wind (but sometimes can be pollinated in other ways). The tomato is not one of those plants. The most common plants that rely on wind pollination are the ones you hear about on your local weather forecast when they talk about high pollen counts for allergy sufferers. For example ragweed, grasses, oaks and the like. Also, as Carolyn pointed out, corn needs the wind to jostle their tassel (Randy term and I make tassel kinda rhyme with jostle which works fairly well if you have a slight southern accent). You can google wind pollination (or anemophily) to get more information if you want.

It's not a problem that you weren't familiar with the term after all it is a bit obscure. By the same token I think you can understand that your post might lead to confusion for those that are. I was initially and now that I read more Carolyn was too. My intent is to be helpful.

Randy

[creister]

"most flowers are pollinated before they open". So I should shake my plants even before the flowers open? I've found I get better fruit set if I gently shake bushes.

[epsilon]

Originally Posted by creister

"most flowers are pollinated before they open". So I should shake my plants even before the flowers open? I've found I get better fruit set if I gently shake bushes.

That's a good question. The first thing I do in the morning is throttle the tomatoes. I've noticed though that some are very much more prolific than others schimmeig stoo is one of them, it requires almost no assistance to set. same with genovese but some of my other beef steaks require so much agitation that I am planning on using an electric toothbrush like fishergirl suggested.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by creister

"most flowers are pollinated before they open". So I should shake my plants even before the flowers open? I've found I get better fruit set if I gently shake bushes.

No need to shake your plants when there are not yet open blossoms. What happend is that as the stigma moves upward through the style the stigma makes contact directly with the pollen bearing anthers,thus the self pollenization.

Shake all you want to however you do that, broom,electric tooth brush,whatever,when the blossoms are open and visible.

Carolyn

[Fusion_power]

The first thing I do in the morning is throttle the tomatoes.

That would be interesting to watch.


Tomatoes are ineffective at setting fruit if they are not mechanically pollinated. They do not normally set fruit from self-pollination prior to the blossom opening. The pollen is released from a slit on the inside of the anther. It is not normally mature enough until the flower opens. Vibration triggers release from the pollen sac. The more the flower is vibrated, the more pollen released and the more likely that self-pollination will be effective.

I had the experience of working with some greenhouses in 2013 and got to see several of them where the flowers had not been adequately vibrated. Fruit set was so low in those greenhouses that they were uneconomical. One greenhouse I visited had used an electric toothbrush daily to pollinate the flowers with the result that he had about 3/4 as much fruit as comparable plants grown in the open. Just saying that if you don't vibrate the flowers, you won't get much fruit. A sonicating bee does a fantastic job vibrating tomato flowers.

Last but not least, I highly recommend the vegibee if anyone needs assistance pollinating their tomatoes or if they want to do manual crosses.

http://vegibee.com/

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by Fusion_power

That would be interesting to watch.


Tomatoes are ineffective at setting fruit if they are not mechanically pollinated. They do not normally set fruit from self-pollination prior to the blossom opening. The pollen is released from a slit on the inside of the anther. It is not normally mature enough until the flower opens. Vibration triggers release from the pollen sac. The more the flower is vibrated, the more pollen released and the more likely that self-pollination will be effective.

I had the experience of working with some greenhouses in 2013 and got to see several of them where the flowers had not been adequately vibrated. Fruit set was so low in those greenhouses that they were uneconomical. One greenhouse I visited had used an electric toothbrush daily to pollinate the flowers with the result that he had about 3/4 as much fruit as comparable plants grown in the open. Just saying that if you don't vibrate the flowers, you won't get much fruit. A sonicating bee does a fantastic job vibrating tomato flowers.

Last but not least, I highly recommend the vegibee if anyone needs assistance pollinating their tomatoes or if they want to do manual crosses.

http://vegibee.com/

Darrel, as to self pollenization before blossoms open I guess we don't agree, but I have no time now to go fetch some links.Will do,if they are still available, when I have the time.

And I say still available b'c I can't tell you how many times I know of a link and it's no longer available.Especiallythose fromthe 20's and 30's when the basic biology of tomatoes was being studied.

Carolyn

[WVTomatoMan]

Darrel and Carolyn: Not that anything can be gleaned from this, but here's my 2 cents worth and experiences.

My "cheater" plants are grown indoors for the first 1 or 2 flowering cycles. I have a box fan 6-8 feet away. I get acceptable fruit set in that most of the flowers set fruit.

My friend is a market grower. His niche is he beats the other local market growers to market. He does this by starting the plants very early and growing them in his greenhouse. He grows 850 plants in 6 gallon containers. He used large industrial fans, but they were expensive to operate and he wasn't getting good fruit set (while there was air circulation it wasn't enough IMHO). Anyhow he switched to bees and hasn't looked back. It's cheaper and he gets good fruit set.

Crossers are going to be cross if pollination occurs later than they'd been led to believe. Generally breeders emasculate flowers at the "just before yellow" stage to prevent self pollination. By the same token you wait 24-36 for the stigma to be ready before introducing pollen.

Randy