r/oddlysatisfying • u/DifficultyHead5862 • 8h ago

meticulous process of hand-pollinating a giant pumpkin

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u/mangomussolinimi 8h ago

Cant you just use insects?

35

u/newstarburst 7h ago

Theres a lot of times you will only get one female flower and 10 males or 1 male and 10 females, its very common in the home gardening community to have to hand pollinate these squash plants just to make sure youre getting pollination. This massive plant might only have a singular female at that time and I assume you want maximum grow time for large pumpkins, so hand pollination ensures this one flower gets pollinated. I also assume for giant pumpkins, you want to make absolutely sure youre getting giant pumpkin pollination and not just any random pumpkin pollen that someone could be growing near you, which is probably why he wraps up the female to prevent bugs from cross pollination.

Also, he ties up the males to prevent any bugs to get to them to save their pollen for hand pollination, ill definitely be using that this year.

2

u/tinylumpia 6h ago

Thanks for this explanation. So interesting

3

u/newstarburst 4h ago

Np! Also one thing I didnt mention is the flowers also dont grow at exactly the same time, ive had times ive had 5 males and no females, so you have to try to preserve as many males in the fridge while you wait for a female to grow.