Going equipped

This morning was a little cooler and occasionally overcast - ideal pea-crossing weather!  I took my pointy tweezers and paintbrush out to do the deed.  My original intention was to put Ezetha's Krombek Blauwschok pollen into Goldensweet buds, but just when you've got a plan, Nature manages to cobble it up somehow.  When I went out this morning, all the Goldensweet buds were too close to opening.  There's a critical point beyond which it's no use trying to cross pollinate a pea flower because it will already have self-pollinated.  The sexual organs are enclosed within a sealed bit of petal, called the keel.  The stigma is receptive to pollen for a short while before the pollen is ripe enough to be shed.  This is usually when you can't see the colour of the inner petals poking out beyond the folded-down wing petals.  All you need to do is choose a closed bud, fold back the outer petals until you see the little sealed packet at the centre.  This you slit along the fold with sharp tweezers or a scalpel.  You'll find a bunch of tiny stalks standing on end, with their packets of pollen all at the top.  The pollen at this stage is stuck in individual lumps to these little anthers.  Scrape off the pollen packets with your implement of choice and wipe them on your sleeve or a leaf or something.  The pollen at this stage isn't powdery.

Then approach your pollen parent.  Choose an open pea flower - just open for preference - and do the same trick of slitting the keel petals.  This time there will be powdery pollen which will stick to your paint brush.  (I chose one with green bristles so I could see the pollen.)  You wipe this pollen over the stigma of your bud.  It's the slightly fatter sticky-up bit inside the bud.  Not too technical I hope!  You can still do this if you don't know the right terminology!   I find it's best to mark my 'mother' bud with thread before going off for pollen.  A small bud amongst many is hard to find again!  Once you've done this a few times you will recognise when pollen is ready.  If the flower has been open too long the pollen is darker in colour and has a 'dried up' look.

This year I chose a garish shade of burnt orange wool to mark my crosses.  I used subtle quilting thread last time.  So subtle I managed to eat one of them! (The pea that is, not the thread!)   Bums!  Another difference from my first pea crossing is the fact that I wore my reading glasses this time.  Two years made a bit of a difference!

I still hope to do the cross the other way round too.  I think it will be easier to make sure I have truly crossed the peas because an already pollinated Goldensweet will grow up next year with its characteristic drop shaped flower.  I'm not sure if I'll recognise an already pollinated EKB as being distinct from the cross.