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Lack of Pollen


Ron

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Is anyone else suffering from a lack of Pollen on their Cephalotus flowers.

I have thirteen flowers on my cephs and whilst most stigma are in receptive mode non of the flowers are producing any pollen, the pollen flowers do not seem to be ripening, this has been going on now for about two weeks or more and a lot of the flowers are now closing.

Tried using a small paint brush but nothing shows, even when using a magnifying glass.

Looks like no seed this year.

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41 minutes ago, CephFan said:

Have you had a large number of hover flies on the flowers?

I suspect the little beggars eat the pollen.

Not that I have seen, lots of flies and bee's and just the odd Hover fly, originally I had them protected by a insect screen, as I wanted to cross a couple of plants, but I removed this yesterday in the hope that I may get some seeds.

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40 minutes ago, ada said:

Is it very humid Ron? try leaving the doors open a bit more

Hi Ada, I have the doors and window open day and night and also have a fan running 24/7, I have closed the door the past couple of nights incase it was getting to cold as the night temps have been down to 10C.

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  • 2 weeks later...

My Cephs have been looking pretty haggered since winter passed.

They've not sprung into life as usual and if anything, looked to be going downhill.

I decided to repot the whole lot while they were already looking sad and I'm glad now (6weeks on) I did. 

Every plant is now putting out new fresh growth and I had 5 flower stalks across 4 plants. Unfortunately none of the flower buds made it to opening.

4 stalks just kind of dried up leaving 1 that still looked promising , that too has now dried up and gone woody before opening. 

I wasn't after seeds as growing them on is painfully slow for me, I do however partially judge the plants health by how well it flowers. Something's definitely not agreed with them this season. They are only looking now how I'd of expected them to look in march/April time...

For once , no sign of mildew either which is usually the culprit for damaged flower stems in my case....

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I moved the main plants I wanted to pollinate into the conservatory, and I was rewarded with pollen and have been pollinating these plants with the brush every day. The seed is starting to show in each flower now, so hopefully I will have some successful seed for the spring.

 

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