This could apply to any fruit but I’m interested in wild American Plum. How disimilar must a pollenator be to pollenate. Another way to put it is how similar can they be.
For example; if I had two isolated American plums and no other plums around and they pollenated each other. Then if I picked two plums from tree A and planted the pits in an isolated spot. Would they be disimilar enough to pollinate each other. I’m open to opinions but if it is an opinion please say so. I’m hoping someone has scholastic or fruit breeding experience to answer this. I don’t want to get deep into what I’m doing because I don’t want to get on a tangent. I’ll discuss it later.
Thanks in advance.
There might be a better chance of cross pollination,if a seed from A and B were planted together.
Brady, I agree with what you stated. The reason I went with A and A was I wanted worse case example. Although B and B is probably also an equally worse case. I sort expect the polenation rate to be a curve with respect to genetic distance. At least to a point.
You will have to get down to some genetic details to answer this question. I do not know the answer for plums, but can describe the way it works for tomatoes and apples in enough detail to give you a start to answer for plums. Apples have “mating types”. The last I looked into this, there were about 50 different mating types where identical mating types can’t pollinate each other. Only when there are different mating types are two varieties compatible. Then there are problems with ploidy level where diploids may be generally compatible but triploids do not produce pollen therefore have to be pollinated by either a diploid or a tetraploid. Tetraploids generally can be pollinated by other tetraploids and usually can be pollinated by diploids. Tetraploid X diploid produces a triploid which usually has some form of sterility, either pollen or seed or both.
Tomatoes are slightly different. Most commercially grown tomatoes are compatible with themselves and with other commercial tomatoes. However, wild species of tomato have a special gene designated “S” that controls a form of self-incompatibility. Essentially, a tomato with the Self-incompatible gene aborts the pollen tube before it can fertilize the ovule. Apply pollen from a different variety that also contains a variant of the S gene and voila, this time it is different and the pollen produces seed.
Pecans are another variant. They have protandrous and protogynous plants where the male flowers are produced either before or after female flowers on the same plant. Since pecan is wind pollinated, a protandrous variety tends to pollinate a protogynous variety, then a few days later the protogynous variety tends to return the favor.
Find out how plum compatibility works. When you know, you will be able to figure out if there is a self-compatibility barrier.
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Thanks for your input Darrell. My search’s always gave very basic information. I will use some of your verbage in my searches and maybe get farther.