Hand Pollinating Hot Peppers

Why??? Hand pollinate your hot peppers. Because you
can achieve almost a 100% fruit set of your hot peppers
by the use of hand pollination. Sounds like a good
enough of reason to me.
First lets talk about pollination and pollen.
Pollination is quite simply the transfer of pollen
(which is found on the anthers) to the stigma
(the center part of the flower) which then results in
being fertilized. Fertilized equals fruit set.
It is interesting to note that pollen is a somewhat
sticky substance composed of numerous tiny little
grains. Also,the surface of the pollen grains are
covered with bumps and knobs(think of them as fingers)
which aid in the ability of the pollen to adhere to
whatever they come in contact with whether that be
with each other or the stigma. I have heard of the
stigma as being referred to as the stamen.
The pollen on hot pepper plants becomes ripe every
day between 11:00a.m. and 3:00p.m. Although,I have
pollinated my plants as early as 10:00 a.m. and
as late as 7:00 p.m.
Okay,now it's time to talk about how to hand
pollinate.
The first thing that you do is take a small artists
brush and wet it but not so wet as to have water
dripping off of it.
Next you take the brush and swirl it around inside
the flower which absorbs the pollen off of the anthers
and then gently push the brush into the center of the
flower as far down as you can go.
Next you take the brush over to the next flower
and repeat this procedure over and over until you
have pollinated all of your hot pepper flowers.
Now most hot peppers are self-fertile which
simply means that their pollen can be used to
pollinate the other flowers on the same plant.
Where as,other varieties of plants are not and they
are called self-sterile which means that the flower
will not become fertilized unless the pollen comes from a
different plant.
Remember that you must be very careful and gentle
when you pollinate by hand. The method that I use
for hand pollinating hot pepper flowers is to very
carefully grab the flower somewhere near the base
of the flower or past the base of the flower with
one finger and your thumb. Also, keep in mind that
you don't want to weaken the stem that is attached
to the flower or where the stem is attached
to the branch of the plant. I have at times been
guilty of accidentally breaking the flower off the stem
or breaking the stem off the branch.
The Hot Banana,Serrano and the Cowhorn peppers
I have broken the stem off at the branch.
However, on plants such as the Hot Thai and the
Cayenne I usually break off the flower at the stem.
Now on the Tabasco I have discovered that you have
to be quite careless in regards to breaking the stem,
whether that be at the flower or at the branch.
Sometime in the near future I will be talking more
about hot peppers.
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