Mangling Black Sea Man

[OmahaJB]

This afternoon I attempted for the first time to emasculate a flower. The victim was Black Sea Man. I re-read Patrina's thread on how she executes her crosses, and I visited avrdc.org to look at their instructions which included pictures. Quite frankly I didn't know for sure what the 'anther cone' was, although I was correct in my assumption.

Things didn't turn out quite as well as in the pictures on that website. It showed the anther cone being sliced then lifted off in one piece. I made a slice but it didn't lift off, then a second slice, before finally just pushing sections of the anther cone back and clipping it off. I also clipped off the petals, but am now worried that I may have damaged the ovaries or possibly even cut them off too! No idea!

After the first flower didn't seem to go well I decided to do a second one. It turned out only slightly better. The stigma or whatever it's called is fine. I'm just hoping I didn't do too much damage.

Do you guys & gals slice the anther cone in a circular fashion so you can lift it up in one piece? From the pics I thought the guy made a slice or two on the side of the cone and it seemed to lift right up.

Hopefully in a couple of days the flowers from the donor plant will ready to contribute pollen. A couple are not far off from opening.

Interesting experience but I'm a long way off from doing this correctly.

Jeff