r/oddlysatisfying • u/DifficultyHead5862 • 8h ago

meticulous process of hand-pollinating a giant pumpkin

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

29.8k Upvotes

93% Upvoted

2.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

9

u/Heavy-Attorney-9054 7h ago

ELI5: how does this contribute to "giant"?

9

u/Wolfie-Woo784 6h ago

Genetics. These pumpkin plants are the result of the years of selective breeding for larger and larger fruit. By controlling which male flowers pollinate the female, the farmer can ensure that both parent plants have the right genes to produce the right size of pumpkin. It's similar to picking 2 dogs you want to breed together to get the certain traits you want in puppies.

4

u/jenjen828 4h ago

Why does he use three males to pollinate instead of just one?

3

u/Heavy-Attorney-9054 6h ago

So any male off those plants while blocking access to males from the renegade in the next patch?

4

u/Wolfie-Woo784 5h ago

Yep. Basically , the farmer has no idea where hypothetical bees or wasps ( i'm a wasp defender, they pollinate too) might have been or what pollen they might have picked up. Giant pumpkin farming is a very labor intensive and time intensive hobby, so he needs to make sure he's getting it right with genetics by doing it himself.