The transfer of pollen grains from anthers of the male flower to the stigma of the female flower is called pollination.

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POLLINATORS:

Pollination is done by many agents like wind, rain and insects. The insects or animals that are doing this work are called as pollinators. Examples of pollinators are honey bees, bumble bees, wasp, ants, butterflies, moths, beetles, etc.

All these insects will get attracted towards flowers. Therefore it is beneficial to have 3 to 4 different flower plants in your vegetable garden for better pollination.

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There are different types of flower that will bloom in vegetables.

• male flower
• female flowers
• bisexual flowers(male and female parts are present in same flower)

In vegetable garden or terrace garden the major problem is that all the gourds like ridge gourd, bottle gourd, snake gourd, bitter gourd, ash gourd, etc. will have male and female flowers separately unlike tomato, brinjal and chili which will have bisexual flowers.

Therefore for the gourds we need to take care of the pollination if there are no honeybees. But for other vegetables they will pollinate themselves. No need for us to pollinate.

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IDENTIFICATION OF MALE AND FEMALE FLOWERS IN GOURDS

The female flowers will have fruit like structure in the base and then the flower will arise from that structure.

In male flowers there won’t be any such structures and it will be plain.

MALE FLOWER of cucumber

FEMALE FLOWER of cucumber

HOW TO DO HAND POLLINATION:

            The female flower has to be pollinated with male flower for the fruit set to be happen. In the early morning hours when the flowers bloomed pluck the male flower and rub it over in the female flower, make sure that it is touching the female parts inside the flower. Or else you can use brush for pollination.

WHAT WILL HAPPEN IF THE POLLINATION HAS NOT DONE?

• You will observe the female flower will dry and fall off after one or two days of flower bloom.
• Sometimes it will look like the fruit set has happen but it will fall off. The reason is due to improper pollination

KEYWORDS: pollination , hand pollination , advantages, male and female flower , creepers

WRITE UP BY

Geethashree.S.G

Bsc graduate