Pollination - the key to fruit and seeds

Pollination is nature's way of ensuring the survival of plant species. It's fertilization, the first step in reproduction of the plant through seed.

After pollen is received, seed development can begin. Without it, seeds won't develop and fruit that carries the seeds won't develop either.

Understanding the concepts of fertilization isn't crucial to vegetable gardening, but it helps us understand why some crops don't produce as expected.

The most common and best of nature's flower fertilizers are bees. Honey bees and bumble bees make the top of the list. They are numerous, they can get deep into flowers, they carry lots of pollen with them, and they work tirelessly all day long.

Certain types of bees favor certain types of flowers. I find that bumble bees are commonly found in squash blossoms. Let's examine how we can achieve vegetable gardening success with bees and pollen.

The term open pollinated refers to the ability of plants to accept pollen from outside sources and still produce seed that will develop into nearly the same plant as the parents. This is often a benefit to those of us who grow fruit trees. It's common for specific types of apple trees to become fertile because of the pollen from an unrelated variety of apple tree.

The term self fertile refers to a plant that is self-fertile, one that fertilizes itself and doesn't require pollen from another plant. This can involve pollen from blossoms on the same plant, or it could involved pollen transferred from the male portion of a blossom to the female portion of the same blossom, sometimes without the blossom ever opening.

Again, if you're not a whiz at understanding plant fertilization, it won't matter much unless you're saving seed and you want the seed to be pure. For the most part, fertilization takes place with ease, but sometimes you need to help out a bit.

Some blossoms are cross fertilized. This is simply pollen from one plant fertilizing another. Unusual or unexpected results may be seen with cross fertilization in plants. It's usually not a problem for those engaged in vegetable gardening as a hobby, but it can be trouble for the commercial grower.

The overwhelming majority of plants are fertilized by a mechanism such as birds, bees and butterflies. Most of this fertilization is done by insects, with bees doing more than their fair share. A small portion of plants are fertilized by wind pollination. Corn is a good example of a vegetable that requires wind to be fertilized.

If you're vegetable gardening indoors, you might need to become skilled at fertilizing your plant by hand in order to ensure that you get fruit set. It isn't difficult, but requires being able to distinguish between male and female blossoms, and recognize how each plant needs to be fertilized.

Since many of us engaged in vegetable gardening tend to buy our seed from commercial growers and distributors of seed, we often don't consider the process of fertilization to be very important. If you're saving seeds for future crops or you expect your tomatoes to set fruit, you might want to become more aware of the fertilization needs of your plants.

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