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Post by duronal on Sept 3, 2009 15:34:31 GMT -8
Well i've been reading about on here for a while now and realised that i still didn't have an answer to this most fundemental question?
I seem to recall that most tomatoes have enclosed anthers so how is it done?
Can anyone help?
Many Thanks
D
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atash
Junior Member
Learning from my mistakes since 1964
Posts: 96
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Post by atash on Sept 3, 2009 19:02:12 GMT -8
Duronal, I am just a lowly apprentice, but the master is getting ready for his big trip to Europe, so maybe my answer will do for now. Tom showed me how to do it. You collect pollen from mature flowers. No brainer. The anthers are sort of fused together around the stigma, and form sort of a little "cone" around it. Hold the anthers with the tweezers, and tap the cone into your pollen-jar several times. Use a pollen jar with a dark, smooth interior, so that you can see the pollen. The trick is that you then select IMMATURE flowers to pollinate. They have to be immature, or they will already have self-pollinated. Look for blossoms that are still CLOSED, but showing some yellow. Next, pull the anther cone off the blossom using some tweezers. Be careful not to damage the stigma. Take a fine-haired artist's brush, and push it into the pollen so that the pollen collects on the end of the brush. Then push the tip of the brush onto the tip of the stigma. Tomatoes usually have several blossoms in a cluster. Pollinate all the blossoms that are feasible, and remove the rest (too old or too young), and then tag the whole cluster. I suggest having many plants to experiment with because it might take a few tries to get it right. Have fun!  |
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Post by Tom Wagner on Sept 3, 2009 21:06:08 GMT -8
Atash,
You did a fine job explaining the basics. And you are right, I am busy getting things done before leaving for Europe. So many tomatoes to extract seed from and so many hybridized tomatoes with the string tags attached. I took a picture of the string tags that I threw in a container. I'll post a picture of it on my blog someday.
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Post by kctomato on Sept 4, 2009 15:47:55 GMT -8
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