Azgarden said:If I wanted to hand pollinate, I will need to somehow beat the pollinators at their job. Do they self pollinate also?
Hello Mary,
Bees only accidentally pollinate and self pollinate. Bees get a lot of credit for pollination, but actually the bees aren't the least bit interested in pollinating anything. They are just going after the nectar, that happens to be associated with the pollen florets. Some bees gather pollen as food. But in the process of going after nectar, bees can accidentally jostle pollen florets. And some pollen may get accidentally get into their body hairs and carried about that way.
A variety of bees are interested in zinnia nectar, including bumblebees, carpenter bees, "sweat" bees, and of course, honeybees. At least, that is the situation here in Kansas. The bees aren't a serious problem for me. I have on occasion been working on a zinnia bloom when a big bumblebee would alight on the bloom and I would just use my forefinger and thumb to "flip" the bee off the bloom. At first I was apprehensive that the bee would attack me, but they never did. Occasionally I flipped the bee hard enough to stun it on the ground for a minute or two, but when it recovered it would not attack me, but would just fly to another zinnia bloom. The only bee stings I suffered while pollinating zinnias were from sweat bees, which were drinking sweat on my arm when I moved my forearm so as to trap the sweat bee in the crook of my elbow. Sweat bees are little, but they can get your attention with a sting.
Butterflies and humming birds also like zinnia nectar, but they seem to sip nectar without disturbing the pollen much.
Just time your zinnia pollen gathering at 9 or 10 in morning, a little earlier or a little later, when the pollen florets start opening. Incidentally, zinnia pollen will not "keep" for more than a few hours. You do need to use "today's pollen" today. There is a little bit of a learning curve -- in Arizona's warmer climate the zinnia pollen florets may open earlier in the morning.
Azgarden said:Theoretically, if only one type of zinnia was planted, would the seed in the f2 generation be true to the original?
They would be reasonably true to the original, provided the original was open pollinated (OP) and not a commercial F1 hybrid. Commercial zinnia seeds that are open pollinated come from seed fields that are honeybee pollinated. In many cases, to insure adequate bee activity, there will be one or more beehives located at or near the field. A fair amount of cross pollination by the honeybees occurs in the commercial fields. If the field is producing a mix of colors, there will be some F1 hybrid zinnia seeds in the packet, courtesy of the bees, which are merely crosses between two different colors.
Even if the field is of a single color, like red, there will be some crosses between different red specimens in the packet. Zinnias are said to be heterozygous for that reason. Which means there will always be
some natural variation in your zinnias. Which gives you the opportunity of saving seeds from your favorites, or crossing your favorites.
Azgarden said:And finally, (then I'll stop asking ) is there a book that covers these topics?
Never stop asking. There is a book, which I mentioned to Loretta. It is
Plant Breeding for the Home Gardener by Joseph Tychonievich.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1604693649/
There are other books as well, but that is a good one to start with.
It is easy to make your own zinnia hybrids, and when you make hybrids between your hybrids, as they say on TV, "expect the unexpected".
ZM (not associated with any product or vendor mentioned or linked)
