Anyone have successful pollination?

[Crissytal]

My Pinguicula have been in full bloom this year. I decided to mess around a bit with pollination. I really didn't know what I was doing. I basically just used an old flower stalk from a Drosera, colored the tip black with a Sharpie, found the pollen and rubbed it around the inside of some flowers. I know, real scientific . I also learned how important it is to LABEL what I do. Because of my excellent (actually non-existent) labeling system up to this point, I have no idea what the cross is. It might be selfed or I may have crossed pollinated. So for now they will be known as P. 'Huahuapan' hybrids.

The seeds germinated extremely fast. I'd say it took a week or less. They were sown on May 16th. Unfortunately I didn't write down the germination date. It was around 5-7 days maybe less. They are sown on approximately 4:1 vermiculite and perlite. I placed a bag over the pot to keep the humidity up. I cut a few slits in the bag to allow for some airflow. The pot is sitting in about 1/4" of water. I refill when the water gets used up but before the pot gets dry. So far so good. I also collected some seeds from P. launana. Same deal, I don't know the other parent so they will be P. launana hybrids. They were harvested about a week after the P. 'Huahuapan' hybrid seeds. No germination on those yet.

Here are the P. 'Huahuapan' hybrid seedlings as of yesterday. Please forgive the photo quality. I really should have used a tripod.

Thanks for looking,
Crystal

 

[Peatmoss]

Ohhh, nice!

I had a P. "weser" that would flower constantly, it died, and none of my pollination attempts were successful. Alas, I will never have a big enough ping collection to have tow species in flower at once...

 

[Crissytal]

Thanks Peat! Sorry to hear you were not successful with your P. 'Weser'. I don't believe the hybrid is infertile, but it could be. Sometimes I don't have successful pollination either. I thought I had successfully pollinated my P. 'Apasionada'. The flower dropped and the seedpod swelled. It had started to dry so I checked it yesterday. There wasn't anything in the pod. Keep trying, you might get lucky .

 

[gill_za]

Crissytal,

I was wondering about P. weser. It looks like there are crosses of that hybrid with others (found some pics on cpphotofinder).

 

[jimscott]

Wow! Great job! I've had a major struggle with hand pollination of Mexican butterworts, even though I've seen the plant part pictures and seen the video and I think I'm doing it right.

 

[hcarlton]

i had the same "swelling-but-nothing-in-the-pod" trick happen with my P. grandiflora. At least that one produces plenty of gemmae.

 

[31drew31]

Great germination rate Crystal! Would love to see an update in a month or two. I never got any of my seedlings to grow past a few mm.

 

[kulamauiman]

have managed to get seeds from non clone P. moctezumae to sibling. Will try to get pics this weekend.

 

[8abug4fun]

Hey Crystal & y'all--I have pollinated/cross-pollinated MANY Pings & have had a lot of success with germination & growing them out. Some x's are not fertile receptively(won't make seed) but will produce some pollen(usually very small amounts) that can fertilize other flowers. "Aphrodite" never produces seed tho the pod swells etc. P Emarginata is generally very receptive to pollen but very difficult to get pollen from, mostly I've found because the flower is so small. And some pollination attempts will only produce a few seeds. I've had some pods yield as few as maybe 5 seeds. I grow mine out on my Ping Mix(peat, perlite, AS, fine sand, coarse sand, coir, fine bark--everything but the kitchen sink!) I keep the media such that it doesn't tend toward soggy by using more coir, sand, perlite since these don't hold on to water/allow more evaporation as tightly as peat. this also helps increase humidity. I grow them under T5 lights but with a good distance(18") & a partial cover to filter light & increase humidity(but allow air circulation).
Its really fun to watch the little guys develop & see what characteristics they've inherited. Happy growing!
mark

 

[Crissytal]

gillza, I'll have to give P. "Weser" a try if it will ever flower. No signs of flowering this year yet.

Thanks Jim!! I haven't had much success up until now. I've noticed that some produce lots of pollen while others don't seem to produce any at all (it's probably such a small amount I didn't notice it). Keep trying! P. moctezumae was the first I successfully pollinated about 2 years ago. Unfortunately I killed the seedlings.

Thanks 31drew! I plan to do occasional updates. Hopefully I won't kill them .

hcarlton, I've had that happen a few times on different butterworts. It's weird because it looks like pollination was successful only to find out it wasn't.

I'd love to see some pictures Kula if you get a chance to take some this weekend. Seed grown Pinguicula seem pretty rare.

Mark, thanks for all the information you have given me. It has been very helpful! It's looking like keeping the seedlings bagged is the key. I believe "Aphrodite" was another that made dud seedpods for me as well. That makes sense then if some crosses just won't or can't work. I'll be sure to look more closely on the pods that look unsuccessful. Maybe there was a handful of seeds hiding in there and I just happened to miss them. It's amazing how fast the seedlings grow compared to Drosera. There really seems to be a noticeable difference in size everyday. I'm sure they will eventually show down a bit, but for now it certainly is fun looking at them everyday.

I checked my P. laueana hybrid seeds yesterday and noticed germination. They were sown on May 21, 2012. Germination occurred on May 31, 2012. 10 days is pretty darned fast! I think the P. 'Huahuapan' cross was a little faster in germination, but probably just by a couple days or so. I'm making an effort to keep better records . I'll update with pictures in a few days.

Crystal