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ShagHarbour n,s canada

hello i still cant judge the best time for fertility in sunflowers i always want to get them as fertile as possible when do you growers cut your plants down to harvest seeds my seeds still have the pollen things conected to them but the plans are well over 130 days think there ripe..thanks for reading

10/11/2013 4:55:50 PM

Western PA

The seeds on the out side of the head will be matured first, as they were the first ones to open. If you can get up on a ladder, rub your finger across the outer edge. If they start to fall out, they are ready.
Make sure to throw out the ones with a tiny hole in them. some kind of moth larva likes to bore into them.

10/11/2013 9:01:41 PM

west central IN/East central IL

The birds will let you know.

10/11/2013 11:43:42 PM

ShagHarbour n,s canada

i plucked my prize flower today at a woopinng 140 days ,,i thoguht fore sure they would be over due,,, i cracked open a few seeds only to find out theres nothing in them,,,, i made sure to cull all the other sunflowers around to keep them pure,, can i sunflower self pollinate its self i thought it could

10/18/2013 2:55:17 PM

Western PA

I believe they do self pollinate, but....

every seed has its own flower that must be pollinated in order for it to have a solid seed inside , and not be empty.
You would need a lot of bees to do all that pollinating.
The way it was explained to me is that, every day, another ring of flowers opens, that needs to be pollinated on that day. The next day , the ring of flowers next to yesterdays will open, and so fourth....

Bottom line is, you will have a lot of empty ones.

I came up with what I call the bounce test. Get a mess of those seeds. Set them off to the side of your kitchen table. Pick up one and hold it about 2-3 inches over the table and drop it. The empty ones will bounce all over and sound kind of hollow.
The solid ones will not bounce as much. Squeeze a few after you sort them and you will see what I mean.
Hope that helps.

10/18/2013 11:59:59 PM

ShagHarbour n,s canada

i squeezed them as i sorted them in total i had 1500 ended up with 600 after the squeeze test of filled seeds

10/19/2013 9:57:50 AM

Colorado

cue,take a seed out and see how big the seed germ inside looks.

11/17/2013 7:11:05 PM