katesflowers said:Zen - yes I am interested in cross pollinating. Show me more !
Hi Kathy,
Basically, you just rub a pollen bearing floret on one or more stigmas. It takes only a single pollen grain to fertilize a stigma and the pollen florets contain quite a few pollen grains, so it is possible to fertilize several stigmas with a single pollen floret.
You will need something to grasp the pollen florets, and that can be a pair of tweezers, the twissors that they sell in drugstores to pluck eyebrows, or forceps. Hobby stores usually stock inexpensive forceps. Just use whatever is handy, or purchase a pair of whatever you feel comfortable using. I use both tweezers and forceps, depending on whatever is handy. I actually have a pair of twissors, but apparently I have misplaced them. The pollen florets and stigmas are labeled in this picture.
You can use forceps (or tweezers or twissors) to pick a pollen floret and use it like a brush to apply pollen to stigmas.
You can also use an artist's brush to dab in some pollen on a pollen floret and then touch stigmas to transfer the pollen.
Zinnias put out new petals with stigmas and new pollen florets nearly daily, so you may find it effective to do pollinations on several successive days. The pollen florets emerge in the morning, the exact time depending on the local weather. You may want to get an early start to have access to the pollen before the bees show up.
As Kai suggested, there is a dedicated message thread here in the Annuals forum titled "It can be fun to breed your own zinnias" which discusses various aspects of the subject. It is a fascinating hobby for me. There is an older, longer thread by the same title over in the GardenWeb Annuals forum. That was the original thread.
Il'll be glad to try to answer any questions you have on this subject.
ZM
