Pollinating Gourds by Hand for Genetic Purity and Cross-Breeding Control

Insects are the typical pollinator for the average gourd grower, and they typically do a good job of insuring you will harvest plenty of fruit. However, for the individual who wants to preserve a gourd specie or design his or her own variety of gourd, more control of the genetic materials being passed from the male to the female is crucial. Pollination left to the moths is unpredictable, and you can have Marankas crossing with bottle gourds and long gourds and end up with some really weird combinations. This is and can be fun also, but it is important that we at least try to preserve the known varieties and possibly even develop new varieties.

Both of the following methods of hand pollination require learning about what time your male flowers open, and how they look when the pollen is ready, but they have not opened yet. If you take pollen from a male flower that has already opened, it may already have some pollen from another male flower of a different type of gourd. If you are doing this for controlled genetics or variety preservation, this contamination can ruin a years effort, so be sure you select male flowers that are ready to pollinate, but that no pollinating insects have been able to enter yet.

Hand pollination of gourds requires a little patience at first, but anyone can do it with a little practice. There are two primary methods of hand pollination of gourds, one is slightly easier, the other might require developing the right touch, but is the preferable method in my opinion. The first method is the use of a paint brush. Using a very small or fine artists soft hair paint brush, you can gently draw some pollen from the male flower to apply to the female flower. Two ways of doing this are, one to go back and forth from the male to the female, or the other way is to go from male flower to male flower collecting lots of pollen and depositing this pollen into the corner of a baggie or something to hold it until you have enough to start pollinating female flowers.

The second method, and our preferred method is to select your male flower that is ready to provide pollen, and the female flower that is ready to be pollinated. Being very gentile and trying not to jar the male flower to much, pick the male flower off the vine, and carefully open the petals one at a time. Fold each petal back until it breaks off near the base of the flower, or use your finger nail to pinch the flower petal off. Again being careful not to jar or shake the male flower too much. The reason for the caution is you want as much pollen to remain on the male stamen as possible. once all the petals are removed from the male flower, carefully open the female petals as well until you can gently place the base of the male flower with all its pollen, upside down into the female flower, close to but not touching the female pistils. Once you have this in place, I use the thumb and forefinger of my other hand to gently flick the finger holding the male flower, just enough to jar the male flower and coax pollen to fall off the male and onto the female.

If you are pollinating to maintain the purity of the gourd strain or if you are cross breeding with intention, then after the female has been pollinated, wither her petals must be closed up and tied off, or better yet just gently remove each of the entire petals from the female. This will prevent other pollinators from coming in and adding an undesirable pollen to your female. remember, it takes this years crop to make seeds, and next years crop to see the results, so if your efforts are contaminated, that is two years lost. It only takes a few minutes to insure a proper job.

Once the job is complete, take an orange plastic gardening ribbon and wrap it around the stem of the female and mark this ribbon with your experiment or purity and variety.

When you get the knack of hand pollination of gourds, you will be able to look at the female pistils before pollination and notice the glassy or almost wet look, and after a successful process you will notice a satiny or dull look to the female pistils as they have been peppered with pollen. Our success rate is well over 99%, and probably much higher than natural pollination.

If you would like to learn more about growing gourds, please visit The Gourd Reserve, with over 800 pages of gourd related information and artwork. You can also find more short articles on gourds and growing gourds here on my AC producer page.