indoor Indoor polination

rkempston

rkempston

So I'm growing a few varieties of peppers in my house through the winter season. I currently have my first pepper plant (bisbas) starting to flower. I was wondering if there was anyway to polinate the pepper indoors? I tried this last year with no luck by taking a cotton swab from flower to flower. Also it's sitting near my habenero plant that is also flowering. So I want to avoid cross Polination if possible.
 
drumroll the main stems with two fingers when you got flowers open for a few seconds, im not talking about the trunk
 
When you say you had no luck with cotton last year you mean flowers didn't set? This is my first year growing and when a flower doesn't set I don't know how to tell if it didn't pollinate or if it had some other problem, but i've found that most flowers set pods by themselves even if they are indoors without airflow or bugs or me doing anything about it.
 
I'm afraid of cross polination between the hab and bisbas so maybe I'll just try the shake method. And by cotton swab I mean I took a cotton swab and swabbed every flower to spread the pollen.
 
I use a fan pointed at my plants when my chinenses and baccatums are flowering indoors, and have had good success with that. Plus, the wind strengthens the branches for when it's time to go outside, and the fungus nats hate the fan. I use the cotton swab technique with indoor pubescens, plus I also grow the rocoto literally right next to each other so that their branches inter mix. That way I can rub flowers from different plants together, which works pretty well. Obviously the success rates are way worse for me indoors than outdoors. Indoors I would say I get like 50% flower drops on the chinenses and baccatums, and 60%-75% flower drops on the pubescens. It's still nice to have some fresh pods to munch on in the winter, so totally worth it.
 
rkempston said:
So I'm growing a few varieties of peppers in my house through the winter season. I currently have my first pepper plant (bisbas) starting to flower. I was wondering if there was anyway to polinate the pepper indoors? I tried this last year with no luck by taking a cotton swab from flower to flower. Also it's sitting near my habenero plant that is also flowering. So I want to avoid cross Polination if possible.
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Take index finger smudge all over open flower, repeat with every open flower there is, enjoy your peppers later. :P
 
never had problem with my plants
 
 
Heckle:
2 in the pubescens one in the annum
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 to avoid cross pollination
 
There seems to be a lot of talk about how to pollinate here ... hope this is the place to ask a question.
Hi ... When do I start hand pollinating?
 
More of a question, from more experienced pepper growers then me with hard to pollinate flowers.  Ex: Rocoto's
 
I fully understand how.  But my question is when-? When do the little Anther's start producing pollen to distribute for the stigma?  Do they burst open or rupture?  I have not had much success in the past.  I thought it may be a timing issue.  When looking at it with a magnifier, how do I determine when to start pollinating?
 
Thank you for any reply
 
Thomas
 
Thomas7608 said:
There seems to be a lot of talk about how to pollinate here ... hope this is the place to ask a question.
Click to expand...
Yes this is the place to ask. And thank you for doing research before posting & using an older thread on this topic. I read every post and learned new things & reminders of other ideas.
 
Thomas7608 said:
I fully understand how.  But my question is when-? When do the little Anther's start producing pollen to distribute for the stigma?  Do they burst open or rupture? When looking at it with a magnifier, how do I determine when to start pollinating?
Click to expand...
Sorry, not in my wheelhouse of expertise. Let's see if I can raise CaneDog with this ruse;
 
CaneDog said:
Good luck.
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I believe he will see this in his Notification folder & lead him here.
 
The peppers will pollinate themselves without any assistance if you give them the conditions they want in order to be fertile.  Taking a small paint brush or cotton swab can help, as can shaking the plant or putting a fan on it, but getting them producing viable pollen and receptive to it is the key.  What you're looking for is the split in the anthers that opens and starts to produce visible/fuzzy pollen.  Lots of it, not just a little.  That's when it's time to expect sets and to hand pollinate.  Usually this happens within a couple hours of lights on once flowers develop and the environment is right.
 
For rocotos, you may wish to create a day/nigh temperature differential of at least 10 degrees.  Some people spray the plants each night with cold water to trigger them if conditions are such that it stays warm at night. Rocotos don't produce their best under the same conditions as most other peppers.
 
To avoid cross pollination, don't use the same brush or swab on different varieties.  Give them each their own.  A fan on the plants may blow a little pollen around, but any plant that's setting pods easily, versus a plant that's setting only one or two, is likely to have a high percentage of true seeds - if not 100% - when grow indoors.
 
[SIZE=12pt]CaneDog[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]Thank you for passing along your wealth of knowledge, regarding my pollination question.  Your explanation was very clear.  Thank you for your information. [/SIZE]
 
[SIZE=12pt]NECM[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]You are correct regarding searching THP archives to obtain an unbelievable amount of information.  Just a few days ago I found myself reading for 3-4 hours.  Time passed by so quickly.  I thought it was very informative.  One can always gain more knowledge just by taking the time and reading information posted by others.  This is a great place for that![/SIZE]
 
[SIZE=12pt]Thomas[/SIZE]
 
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