Is it better to brush pollinate like this

D

dragon49

I pollinate indoors with a fan as well as with a paintbrush.  I found this great guide to crossing:
 
http://fatalii.net/Growing_chile_peppers/Breeding
 
Prior to the paintbrush pollination attempts, should I follow this guide and remove the petals and stamens from half of the flowers on my plants before taking step 8?  Would this get me more peppers?  Right now, my "technique" involves gently touching one opened flower with a paintbrush, then gently touching others.
 
wait are you breeding or not?
 
that method is as old as prostitution, and is meant to remove the male parts of some flower prior to maturing and pollinating itself.  if you are not breeding... why bother?
if you jsut want a pod to set, it does not matter what pollen pollinates the flower... from what i remember from highschool biology, plants are not diploids, the traits from both the parents are not expressed in the pod itself, but in the seeds that the pod produces. 
 
assuming you do not want to breed, put away the paintbrush alltogether... use one of those cheap mechanical oscillating toothbruses... you want the sort that has the brushes moving back and forth, not just rotating in one direction. 
 
I don't bother pollinating peppers, anymore, but when i did, i used this thing. I still do actually, but only for tomatoes, and only when i can find it, and when i remember to do so.
 
http://www.drugstore.com/oral-b-pro-health-pro-health-battery-toothbrush-dual-clean/qxp222659
 
you will see, depending on the humidity, little puffs of pollen shooting out of the mature flowers. if you do the same to a mature truss of tomato flowers, you will see a remarkable little cloud of pollen, much more than you might expect.

theres also the more 'professional' products, designed solely for the task of pollinating.
 
http://hydro-gardens.com/growsup1.htm
 
scroll down a bit... they sell like 4 of them. the toothbrush works though, so well that i would not even consider buying the alternatives unless they were cheaper. 
 
queequeg152 said:
wait are you breeding or not?
 
that method is as old as prostitution, and is meant to remove the male parts of some flower prior to maturing and pollinating itself.  if you are not breeding... why bother?
if you jsut want a pod to set, it does not matter what pollen pollinates the flower... from what i remember from highschool biology, plants are not diploids, the traits from both the parents are not expressed in the pod itself, but in the seeds that the pod produces. 
 
assuming you do not want to breed, put away the paintbrush alltogether... use one of those cheap mechanical oscillating toothbruses... you want the sort that has the brushes moving back and forth, not just rotating in one direction. 
 
I don't bother pollinating peppers, anymore, but when i did, i used this thing. I still do actually, but only for tomatoes, and only when i can find it, and when i remember to do so.
 
http://www.drugstore.com/oral-b-pro-health-pro-health-battery-toothbrush-dual-clean/qxp222659
 
you will see, depending on the humidity, little puffs of pollen shooting out of the mature flowers. if you do the same to a mature truss of tomato flowers, you will see a remarkable little cloud of pollen, much more than you might expect.

theres also the more 'professional' products, designed solely for the task of pollinating.
 
http://hydro-gardens.com/growsup1.htm
 
scroll down a bit... they sell like 4 of them. the toothbrush works though, so well that i would not even consider buying the alternatives unless they were cheaper. 
Click to expand...
 
Thanks for the detailed response.  No, I'm not breeding.  I'm off to buy an electric toothbrush tomorrow.
 
Sounds stupid, but order an adult product online.. does the same trick and are far cheaper. And for the sake of it, don't pollinate with a giant penis shaped vibrator but get an neutral looking mini for $3.. It also last me a full season with only two AA batteries.

(I got the tip from a tomato grower, it works great)
 
You can keep your cash in your wallet entirely with chiles. As long as you are growing in pots, the fan and a simple periodic thump to the pot are all it takes. A tad paranoid about that being enough? Go ahead and just brush your hand across the branches. If you still feel like you haven't done enough because you haven't laid out any cash, you can send some to me. I won't complain if you do!
 
i agree with geeme honestly, you should atleast do a side by side... with one plant un molested, and one that you carefully pollenated. i stopped caring about pollenating peppers a while back, they dont seem to need it.
 
neither do tomatoes for that matter... the only reason i do it is because it takes only a second or two... being that all the flowers are one on truss. 
 
I'm a fan of pollinating manually, but often beginners tend to over do it.. What leads to flower drop. I did a test with jalapeño early and had an average of 14% more pods over the 8 test plants.. not great, but if it's up to people if they think it's worth it.

I only do it with my rarer varieties..
 
I used the electric toothbrush technique.  I didn't see any flying pollen so I'm not sure if I accomplished anything—I wonder if my apartment has some weird environmental problem that interferes with pollen production.  
 
If you're outdoor growing... Bees. They do work for you, and they give you food! Otherwise, like geeme said, a thump to the container is all that is needed.
 
I haven't figured out an exact rhyme or reason to why my plants put off plumes of pollen sometimes, and at other times do not. Humidity and temp do play a relatively significant role though - at least in Texas where we have really hot days.
 
Hand-pollination might get you more peppers, or roughly the same. Sometimes it can be better to have fewer, higher quality pods than a greater number of smaller pods. When I prune my peppers back, it generally produces a lower number, but the size and flesh thickness is generally much greater.
 
dragon49 said:
I used the electric toothbrush technique.  I didn't see any flying pollen so I'm not sure if I accomplished anything—I wonder if my apartment has some weird environmental problem that interferes with pollen production.  
Click to expand...
 
humidity is the only impediment.
 
what plants? annums? frutenses? the hot one i cant recall?
 
Regarding the electric toothbrush - there is one variety of tomato plant that, for some strange reason, will only pollinate at a certain frequency. This frequency happens to match the frequency of the wings of a certain type of bee and none others. It was found that electric toothbrushes also have this frequency. Hence, an electric toothbrush is perfect if you happen to grow that particular variety of tomatoes. (Sorry, I'm too lazy ATM to look this up again, but you're welcome to use Google and other such tools to research it on your own.) The use of an electric toothbrush for that variety got applied (erroneously) to other varieties by gardeners who didn't know the specific application, and then was subsequently spread to other types of plants, including chile peppers. As of the last time I looked into this topic, there were no chile varieties that required the frequency. I've decided that the electric toothbrush approach, for anything other than the tomato variety that needs it, is promulgated by people who are vibrator addicts of the not-toothbrush kind. 
 
:D
 
queequeg152 said:
 
humidity is the only impediment.
 
what plants? annums? frutenses? the hot one i cant recall?
Click to expand...
 
I have a Chinense cross with tons of flowers and only 1 pod.  Every day or so I see what looks like the beginning of a pod—A shrived up flower with the stigma sticking out, but then it falls off.  I just added tons of light, so I know that a light deficiency is not a problem.
 
I'm giving the toothbrush technique a rest for a while.  I killed 3 or 4 leaves earlier tonight with too much force.  Gonna try Geeems's Branch Shaking technique and see if ti works out.
 
Pfeffer said:
Sounds stupid, but order an adult product online.. does the same trick and are far cheaper. And for the sake of it, don't pollinate with a giant penis shaped vibrator but get an neutral looking mini for $3.. It also last me a full season with only two AA batteries.
(I got the tip from a tomato grower, it works great)
Click to expand...
 
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