breeding Pollination and Cross-Pollination

Ok this will sound a bit naive on my part - as I took AP Biology in highschool, but in my defense that was 16 years ago. I have a couple questions:

1. Pollination - anything special I will need to do promote pollionation or will they pretty much take care of themselves?
2. Cross-Pollination - I read that if I want to avoid cross-pollination and use my seeds again for the next grow to get a small webbed bag and place over a flower, tapping it a couple times a day?

Does anyone have any recommendations here? I am not looking to be a reseller by any means so hadn't really thought about the cross-pollination issue; just more of me wanting to make sure I have good seeds next year. Even read where someone took Shade cloth and built areas for each of his varieties of plants.

Thanks,
Gerry

They self-pollinate so all you need is the wind. If you want good seeds, then you should bag em. Peppers easily cross-pollinate.

With a gentle breeze you'll have some self-pollination occurring, but fruit set is increased by the presence of pollinators. On the other hand, pollinators up the chance of cross-pollination.

In my experience cross-pollination is usually minor; it's not like every seed you save will be crossed, but if you make no efforts to guard against it inevitably some of your seeds will end up hybrids. Bagging flowers is probably the safest way to ensure a seed is isolated, but I've also seen people bag entire plants, or in extreme cases completely isolating plants in greenhouses or shade cloth, etc. If you're a casual grower you should only need a couple pods isolated to ensure enough seeds...

I'll let people who do this weigh in on where to get the supplies. I've even heard of people putting a dab of glue on a flower before it's about to open, but I hear this tends to cause bud drop more often than not.

poleniation: insect or you can do hand polenisation with a soft brush (make wonder in house)
just be aware that pepper are self polinating... if there is some wind and movement (put a rotating fan near can help also) they will make peppers... but help them by hand offer great results!!!

Cross pol. you can isolate different plant from each other. you could put them in bag to avoid insect, you can put them INSIDE when they flowers or just before that to isoltate them... once pod set throw them outside et mark your "isolated pods" and collect seeds from those pods
there is multiple way to avoid cross pol.

1. No need to manually pollinate. If you have a fan or a breeze or even shake the plants a bit they will take care of themselves
2. Try a site search for isolation or cross pollination and you'll likely find many threads with several different isolation techniques from bagging flowers or whole plants to temporarily moving plant indoors or away from pollinating insects

If I let my Plants Cross pollinate, will the first Gen Peppers for that season be different than what its suppose to be? at least will you see some resemblance on the peppers? and I would love peppers to cross pollinate.

You wouldn't notice if this year's pods are the result of a cross-pollination, it's only if you save the seeds and try to grow them that the plant will be different than the mother, which is the trouble with cross-pollination- you won't know it happened until next year.

Personally, I find that cross-pollination is fairly uncommon naturally... it's of concern for professional growers or if you're growing out a rarer variety, but I wouldn't say it happens with more than 10% of the seeds... granted, if you're like many growers here and have a crapload of peppers of the same species, I imagine it happens more frequently. I have only a handful of plants and several species represented.

I almost never isolate seeds. I find that crosses are an interesting and exciting part of the process. Granted, I don't grow many mild peppers... but if you do, or your neighbors within a few miles do, be prepared to deal with the possibility that your superhots may be decidedly tepid as a result of an accidental cross.