Joebass said:The other interesting question is, does the application of pollen on the stigma on "self-fertile" species cause a trigger to make apomictic seed as opposed to an unpollinated bloom?
Don't know about that, but what about its corollary:
---- does the application of pollen on the stigma on "self-
infertile" species cause a trigger to make apomictic seed as opposed to an unpollinated bloom?
I may be getting close to an answer to that:
Since I only have one blooming clone of L. leichtlinii, I seldom get seed set, but occasionally my L. leichtlinii will produce normal pods, and I've always assumed cross pollination with some other asiatic. (I have purposely produced interspecific hybrids before.) In 2014, I did two protected self pollination tests on L. leichtlinii. One did not yield a pod at all, as expected. The other did, a small pod (but normally shaped) that contained mostly chaff. However, three seeds were found. Unfortunately, I then "proceeded" to lose them until their rediscovery this winter. They had been sitting at room temperature for more than a year, and have just come out of their 2 week freeze period, ready for their planting (today). I hope they make it, and I should be able to verify that they are not hybrids early on before flowering.
Whether they are apomictic seed or selfed is still up for grabs, but this
might suggest that self pollination may help to induce seed production of some sort. Now I will need to do more testing....
