Pollination: what does self-fertile mean?

What's pollination? why is it so useful? Which are the differences between a self-fertile or not plant?

Plants, as all other organisms, have to spread their species in the world. Every plant has its own strategy to disperse its seeds as far as possible to give the best habitat to the future plants.

A species that disperses its seeds farther and better will have an evolutionary advantage. That plant will spread over a larger area and shall increase in number. This is one of the concept of the theory of evolution.

Charles Darwin: 12 Feb 1809 - 19 Apr 1882

Fruits are produced (except rare cases) after the pollen has fertilized the ovule and they protect the seeds. Moreover fruits attract animals which, eating them, spread the seeds far away from the mother-plant allowing them to grow without competition for nutrients and light.

                             

                         

Even if a flower has both the male and female parts not alway can self-pollinate. To increase the genetic variability the nature, in many plants, has evolved  a system by which the pollen of a plant cannot pollinate the ovule of the same plant. This kind of plants are named self-sterile.

Many varieties of apple or cherry are self sterile, this means that you need at least two different apple plants to have fruits. Self-sterile plants need cross-pollination to bear fruits.

Instead a self-fertile plant can bear fruit also with auto-pollination, so the presence of different plants is not strictly necessary. Its pollen is able to pollinate the ovule of the same plant. Apricots or peaches are generally self-fertile plants.

If you want to eat fruits from a self-sterile plant you MUST :

• Have at least two plants of the same species (e.i. two apples)
• These two plants must be different cultivars (two "Stark" apple are genetically identical)
• They must flower at the same time
• They must be planted not too far from each other, remember that bees fly in a radius of 1 mile.

How to grow Mayberry or Sweetberry Honeysuckle (Lonicera kamtschatica) ENGLISH version

Many plants can be considered curious...this is one of them. Mayberry produces small fruits that resemble the common Blueberry, but let's start from the beginning.

The Sweetberry Honeysuckle is a crop that, fruits similarity apart, has little in common with the best known Blueberry  (Ericacea) that we can found in every market.

This plant, in fact, belongs to the family of Caprifoliaceae and it originally comes from the remote peninsula Kamchatka lying at the far est of Siberia near to the Bering sea.

This plant evolved to thrive and bear fruits in one of the coldest zone of the world. It's not surprising that it can withstand temperature as low as -40°F during the winter and its flowers can resist without any damage at 18-14°F.

It's a deciduous shrub of small size, very long-lived and it, unlike Blueberry, thrives also in not acid soil.
This is a young shrub in late spring with its new shoots.

The leaves.

Sleeping gems during winter.

At the first warm the gems open. This happens between February and March.

After the sprouts start growing and the future flowers can be observed.

And, between March and April, the flowering begins.


The bell-shaped flowers are yellow and evoluted to withstand severe frost without getting burnt.
The opening time lasts many days and the plant is self-fertile even if cross-pollination will enhance the fruits production.

Soon after, the flower drops and the small fruit can be seen. The increase in size is very fast.

And, at the end, the fruits ripen during a long period as it was for the flowers. The ripe fruits are blue and can be 0,8 Inch in lenght.

The taste varies depending on the degree of maturation. If picked when purple, before turning blue, they taste harsh and bitter remembering the taste of Ribes. At full ripe, when they have a bright blue color, the berries soften and become sweeter with a taste of a mix between Blueberry and Raspberry. 

A curious fruit made by a particular plant that deserves a small place in every garden.

P.s.

This fruit ripens very early during the season, even before Strawberry, and it's the first fruit of the season.
Normally it starts ripening during the month of May.

P.p.s.

The bark flackes off very easily and looks like as a Grape.