Effective Hybridization of Flowers

The beauty of flowers lies in their different shapes and conspicuous colors of those the plant and the flowers produced. If you want a unique flower with unique aspects, then you might consider cross-pollinating various species of the same bulb flowers to suit your preferences.

The process is not very complicated, but in some instances there might be barriers to effective hybridization such as the case whereby the hybrid resulting may fail to produce seeds or have some undesirable qualities.

Otherwise the process is easy and can be done by hand or even using a brush. This can be done by carefully brushing pollen from the parent flower’s style onto the brush or whatever instrument that you are using and then transferring it to the stigma of the flower that you want to produce hybrid seeds.

Lilies are good flowers to start with because they usually have less barriers to cross-pollinate.

Before you start cross-pollinating, there several factors which you need to pay attention to.

They include;

 
 

Choosing Parents to Cross

You need to understand that not all parents are compatible due to the differences in genetics and hence cross-pollination might not be possible and if it is, then the offspring may not be viable. The seeds produced may not germinate unless through sterility in laboratories, something which may be expensive if you are doing it on a small scale.

Its vital that you stick with varieties which are compatible and choose parents which are healthy. They need possess qualities that you want to be passed to the offspring.

Offspring Production

You will realize that also bees, birds or the wind can interfere with the whole process because they can also pollinate hence you should do this in a secluded place far from other flower species with undesirable qualities lest you end up with offspring having undesirable variations. You don’t want contamination of your offspring.

 The Hybridization Process

You will need to collect pollen from the anthers of the parent plant. The pollen collected could be stored in a sealed container in the freezer where it can stay up a year long and still be productive.

• The first step is to locate the parent flower which has the bud just ready to open. You will have to peel the petals of this flower and remove the anthers from the bud.
• Then you will have to apply the collected pollen to the desirable flower’s stigma with a brush, or cotton pad or whatever tool you find appropriate.
• Cover the pollinated stigma to protect from being pollinated by natural pollinators such as bees, birds or insects accidentally.
• Then it’s vital that you label the both parent flowers for future references Also journal the parent’s information such as the species used. Also when the seeds are ready, they will require labeling.