Plant Pollination Primer for Backyard Gardeners

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Gardeners can encourage successful plant pollination with certain strategies. Add water features, a resident beehive, and a diversity of colorful blooms to invite pollinators aplenty into your garden. Plant corn and other wind-pollinated crops in large blocks instead of in rows to achieve adequate pollination and a good harvest.
Gardeners can encourage successful plant pollination with certain strategies. Add water features, a resident beehive, and a diversity of colorful blooms to invite pollinators aplenty into your garden. Plant corn and other wind-pollinated crops in large blocks instead of in rows to achieve adequate pollination and a good harvest.
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Each enclosed, self-fertile bean blossom contains male (anther) and female (stigma) reproductive parts.
Each enclosed, self-fertile bean blossom contains male (anther) and female (stigma) reproductive parts.
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You can use a dry paintbrush to hand-pollinate the blossoms in a small strawberry patch.
You can use a dry paintbrush to hand-pollinate the blossoms in a small strawberry patch.
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Having adequate pollination problems with a crop in your garden? Find the plant family in this chart, learn how that plant is pollinated, and discover ways to improve pollination with a few simple steps.
Having adequate pollination problems with a crop in your garden? Find the plant family in this chart, learn how that plant is pollinated, and discover ways to improve pollination with a few simple steps.

As humans, it’s hard to imagine sex without the ability to move, which is the fundamental challenge of plant pollination. To make seeds, reproductive cells (called “gametes”) from separate male and female cells must join, often from separate flowers and sometimes from separate plants — but the plants can’t move to help make the miracle happen. Instead, they rely on the resources around them: wind, insects, birds and, sometimes, people.

Understanding plant pollination is more crucial than ever, as we are in the midst of a severe decline of native pollinators because of ubiquitous pesticide use in monocrop agriculture. While we may not be able to change this unsustainable practice overnight, we can make some changes in our own backyards to bolster pollinator populations and, in turn, our harvests. Numerous factors that influence successful pollination are within a gardener’s control, including planting in certain arrangements, using organic methods, encouraging wild pollinators and, when need be, actively intervening via hand pollination. The benefits of better pollination can be huge with crops that are eaten as mature, seed-bearing fruits, such as berries, corn, cucumbers, tomatoes and tree fruits.

Like most plants, food crops have sophisticated reproductive systems in place, ready to take on the pollination gamble. Delicate female parts are hidden inside the flower, safe from the elements. Plant pollen faces an out-in-the-open, hostile journey — even with a waxy coating and a stash of carbs for energy, male pollen grains must quickly find their way to a receptive female organ. There, they grow a tube that unites them with the ovary, thus forming a fertilized seed.

Self-Fertile Plants

Beans, peas and tomatoes are examples of species that are “self-fertile,” which means that all the necessities for successful pollination reside within each flower. A bit of well-timed shaking is all that’s needed to sprinkle pollen grains where they need to go, which in nature is done by wind and visits by buzzing insects. When beans, peas and tomatoes bloom but set no fruit, the weather — not a lack of pollinating insects — is usually to blame. Cold or hot weather often causes flower abnormalities that, in turn, cause fertilization to fail. To overcome weather-related crop failures, plant a few varieties known for their cold or heat tolerance — for example, ‘Glacier’ and ‘Tropic’ tomatoes. These are more likely to set fruit successfully under conditions that would cause a sensitive variety, such as ‘Mortgage Lifter,’ to shed most of its blossoms.

  • Published on Sep 12, 2014
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