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Santa Cruz, CA

Being pretty new to all this, I was trying to understand the role of the male flowers in the pumpkin process. Is this right? All pumpkins are female and take their traits from the seed they were grown from. Male pollen given to a currently growing female, will not affect the traits of the pumpkin now growing but only the seeds from that pumpkin will carry his traits. Yes?
Another question. Are all the male pollens from a specific pumpkin identical? If you were to take pollen from pumpkin X and cross it with pumpkin Y which has a five lobe female flower, would all five seed pockets within that pumpkin produced from that union all have identical seeds?

6/24/2006 10:01:04 PM

Mocksville, NC

No each pollen grain is differant , but carry inherant genes.

6/24/2006 10:29:17 PM

Santa Cruz, CA

Does that mean that the pollen grains are similar but not identical. How similar? How far off can they be?

6/24/2006 10:42:09 PM

SF Bay Area, California

Since most AG pumpkins have been outcrossed extensively they have a fairly diverse set of genes. There are a lot of different traits mixed up in a pumpkin's genetic stew. Hence there is a considerable variation seen in the offspring of most particular crosses.

If you have a pumpkin grown from a line that has been selfed or sibbed for a few generations, the variations seen would be much less.....

6/25/2006 9:34:03 AM

SF Bay Area, California

That's six lobes on your Beauchemin by the way. Nice looking plant. I had four female's open on June 24, so I was pushing lots of pollen.....

6/25/2006 9:41:30 AM

Mocksville, NC

It like if you have Children, they look similar, but not identical traits. Unless twins!!!!

6/26/2006 2:13:12 PM

Pocatello (cliffwarren@yahoo.com)

The female contribution to each seed varies as well. Similar to humans...

6/26/2006 5:10:20 PM