A: Can distinct African violet plants be crossed to create new varieties?
A-Yes, all you need are two African violets that are blooming simultaneously. Use teeny manicure scissors to snip open one of the yellow pollen sacs in the middle of a fully opened flower to start the cross. Apply this on the white stigma of the flower you have chosen to be the female, or seed-bearing parent, which sticks out to one side of the pollen sacs.
The seedpod will swell if you are successful, and after a few months it will turn from green to brown, signifying that it is ripe. Harvest before it cracks open and all the small seeds fall out.
Single-flowered African violets are easier to pollinate. However, with some practice and probably a magnifying lens, you can identify the reproductive components hidden among the multipetals of double-flowered kinds.
A fluorescent-light garden is the best area to raise African violets since there, appropriate lighting conditions can be maintained throughout the year, with the fall and winter being the best times. Two 40-watt fluorescent tubes in a common industrial or shop fixture with a reflector can be used to grow lovely African violets. Combine one regular Warm White tube with one Cool White tube. Together, these affordable fluorescent bulbs produce a color balance of light rays that promotes healthy leaves and abundant flowering. Burn the lights for 14 to 16 hours per day.
Even while it is entertaining to experiment with cross-pollinating various African violets, if you are seriously interested in developing a valuable cultivar, you must keep records. Even if you self-pollinate, which is using pollen from one bloom to pollinate another flower on the same plant, the seeds produced may still produce quite a variety of various colors, shapes, and leaf types because the majority of violets grown today are already highly complex hybrids.
The geranium, or Pelargonium as it is botanically known, is another houseplant I like to pollinate. When a geranium flower is fully open, the pollen that surrounds the stigma, which resembles an umbrella with several spokes, is easily visible in the center. This pollen is cinnamon-powdery-fine and is similar to that found in fully open lily and amaryllis blossoms. You can use a little camel-hair artist’s brush or a brush to lightly brush the pollen from the male parent onto the female parent you’ve chosen to bear the seeds. Geranium seeds grow rather quickly and are suitable for harvesting within a few weeks once they are dried.
A cross of African violets produces flowering progeny in total after about a year. Geraniums might blossom in a little bit less time. Likewise, I have always loved crossing my amaryllis. Hippeastrums are the actual plants we grow as amaryllis, but it is a small distinction. It is best to transfer pollen from African violets and geraniums when the stigma of the female flower bursts open and turns slightly sticky as well as when the pollen becomes dry and gritty.
Amaryllis seedpods expand quickly and reach a diameter of around 1 inch. Removing them and putting them in an exposed brown bag to finish drying them out is necessary when they start to ripen and the capsule turns from green to brown. Amaryllis seeds are around the size of a cent, papery, and black. They will grow the fastest if sowed as soon as possible. Additionally, these seeds germinate more quickly when planted vertically into a drill hole sliced through the soil as opposed to flat. For optimum growth, they require a medium that is consistently moist and warm (70 to 75 degrees).
A self-pollinating African violet is possible.
This, when planted, will produce a plant of the same variety. See Cross-Fertilization as well.
Plants such as African violets and others self-pollinate. For self-pollination to occur
A continual supply of water will be made available by the device for African violets.
8-inch circumference. A semi-miniature is so smaller than a regular African Violet but larger than
How do African violets produce seeds?
Purchasing your African violet seeds directly from a reliable online retailer is frequently the simplest option. When it comes to producing seeds, African violets can be difficult, and even when they do, the plants that emerge from the seeds hardly ever resemble the parent plant.
Despite this, you will still need to physically pollinate your African violets if you want to acquire seeds from them. Watch for the flowers to open, then record which bloom appears earliest. This is the “feminine flower” for you. Keep an eye out for another flower to open once it has been open for two or three days. Your male flower will be this.
The moment the male flower opens, gently swirl a little paintbrush around the center of the male flower to collect pollen. After that, twirl it around the female flower’s center to pollinate it.
In about 30 days, you will notice a pod forming in the middle of the flower if the female flower was fertilized successfully. The pollination was unsuccessful if no capsule develops, thus you will need to try again.
It takes the pod around two months to fully mature once it forms. After two months, take the pod from the plant, carefully open it up, and collect the seeds within.