What are the latest methods for hand-pollinating pumpkins?
As a common gourd vegetable, pumpkins are grown on a fairly large area in our country. In rural areas it is also a household vegetable that is widely planted. When growing pumpkins, hand pollination is needed to increase the fruit set rate and yield. So how should pumpkins be hand-pollinated? And when should pollination be done? Today the editor will give you a brief introduction, so let's take a look together!
1. Why hand pollination is necessary
Although pumpkins produce many female flowers during growth, their fruit set rate is not very high, which has a very big impact on the early maturity and yield of pumpkins. Therefore we need to carry out hand pollination appropriately, because hand pollination is the main measure to ensure that pumpkins flower, set fruit and can bear fruit normally. The pumpkin itself is a cross-pollinated plant with separate male and female flowers on the same plant; without hand pollination, it can only rely on bees and other insects to spread pollen. If the rainy season comes, the insect pollination rate will be affected, causing pollen dispersal to be blocked.
2. Pollination time
The time of hand pollination is very important, and it is generally done at 7-8 in the morning. If pollination is done too late, the vitality of the pollen will be reduced, the pollination effect will become worse, and the fruit set rate will be less than ideal. It should not be done on cloudy and rainy days; on cloudy and rainy days, if the female flower stigma is washed by rain, the pollen will be washed away, and hand pollination will naturally have no effect. On the evening before pollination, tie up the corolla of the female flowers that can be pollinated, then untie them the next morning, and tie them up again after pollination, which can prevent rain from washing them away.
3. Pollination methods
The method of pollinating pumpkins is very simple. First collect pollen from the male flower stamens. Then just sprinkle it directly onto the female flower stigma, but before pollinating, to increase the success rate of pollination, it is best to follow the previous method to keep the female flowers from being rained on. When collecting male flower pollen, you can directly brush the male flower stamens with a writing brush, put it in a small dish, and then dip the pollen onto the female flower stigma.
You can also directly pick off the male flower, remove the petals, and then put the stamen directly over the female flower, letting the pollen fall naturally onto the female flower stigma. Finally, bees can be released in the garden to achieve the purpose of pollination through their pollen-collecting behavior, thereby increasing the fruit set rate and yield of pumpkins.
The above is a brief introduction to hand pollination methods for pumpkins. That is all for today's introduction. This article is for reference only, and I hope it can be helpful to everyone.