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Belgium/brussels

Hi.
I already know lots of things about pollinating ( wait till the pollen is mature, ... , gently rub the pollen on the female flower, ... )
But I don't know the clou of the story yet ! ( Believe me , I left my sleep for trying to understeand it ! )
------> I just don't understeand the covering off the flowers AND the time when the flowers open ( and can be pollinated )
In my country, "heavyhitters" told me to pollinate in the half of juli...
I know that the male flowers apear first ( should I cover them too ? ) and the the females. BUT when the female opens the 1st time, should I then pollinate or does the female flower open every day ? I'm sorry but I really don't know which flower opens when... I know this is a stupid problem, but it's very important to me, because this will be my 1st year pollination.
Oops, I forgot to tell my biggest problem : I'll be on vacation from 6-15 July, will that make it worse ???

When I haven't give enough information, just ask me ! This is very important to me !!!

Thanks a lot.
Stijn.

5/11/2003 1:20:59 PM

Chico, Ca

In California we try to pollinate in late june early july.
I go out in early evening and cover BOTH males and females that look ready for the next day to be open. Here the golden hour is around 6:30 am or so. It gets to 100 F by 10:00 am which is way too hot to pollinate. We surround our females with ice to keep it around 85 F. You should not have this problem where you are at though. The female can only be pollinated on the first day open and this period can sometimes last only a few hours. I cover the flowers with ziplock bags and use a twist tie to keep the female closed after poolination.

Hope this helps... Robert

5/11/2003 7:47:34 PM

Belgium/brussels

So you guys can tell which morning the female opens ?
I heard that the males appear first, so they also open first ? So I should cover them when the are going to open ?
I'm sorry for all my stupid questions, this site has allready learnt me a lot, I just don't understand the covering of flowers and their openinghours :)

Bye.

5/12/2003 10:33:41 AM

Cologne / Germany

Stijn, sometimes you have male flowers before there is any female. So watch for the time you have the first females appearing around 15 ft from the stump (best on your main vine). There´s an article with pics here about what to do:
http://www.bigpumpkins.com/HowTo/Pollinate/
If you don´t have enough males when the first female is ready, you can cut off and store some males in the fridge before. Works best when placed in a glass of water like flowers. They should be okay up to 10 days or more.
Remember that your vacation time might still be pollinating time for you. I don´t leave earlier than August for my holidays.

5/12/2003 11:48:17 AM

Ypsilanti Michigan

The bag method sounds great! Covering both male, and female can keep pure seed also. If a male opens uncoverd,bees can drag other pollin and mix it with the male, and loose its purity for pollinating the female.

6/23/2003 4:42:25 PM