Try Your Hand at Plant Breeding

July 20 marks the birthday of Gregor Mendel (1822–1884), the Austrian monk whose experiments with pea plants laid the foundation for modern genetics and the modern plant industry. By carefully transferring pollen from one flower to another, Mendel discovered how traits are passed from one generation to the next.  This is the toolkit used by plant nurseries and agricultural companies creating the next generation of plants for your garden or farmers' fields.

Several sources for the Plant Club breed their own varieties of plants — many of which are now award-winning plants which may already be in your garden.  But plant breeding is something you can do at a much smaller scale for fun in your own garden!

Why Hand-Pollinate?

Hand-pollinating allows gardeners to:

• Create unique flower color combinations.
• Save seed from favorite plants.
• Learn firsthand how inheritance works.
• Increase seed production when pollinators are scarce.

While most crosses won't produce the next breakthrough garden plant — it takes even professionals thousands of crosses to get a result that will wow the plant market — the process offers a fascinating glimpse into the science that fascinated Mendel more than 160 years ago.

How to Hand-Pollinate Flowers

The basic process is surprisingly simple:

• Select two healthy plants of the same species but with different desirable traits.
• Identify a newly opened flower on the "mother" plant.
• Remove the flower's pollen-producing anthers before they shed pollen (a step called emasculation).
• Collect pollen from the "father" plant using a small paintbrush, cotton swab, or by gently touching the flower's anthers.
• Transfer the pollen onto the sticky stigma in the center of the mother flower.
• Mark the flower with a tag so you'll remember which plants were crossed.
• Allow seeds to develop and mature before harvesting.

Good Plants for Beginners

Some flowers are especially easy for first-time plant breeders:

• Zinnias – Fast-growing, easy to pollinate, and available in a wide range of colors.
• Marigolds – Produce abundant seed and show interesting variations in flower form and color.
• Cosmos – Easy to grow and quick to produce seed.
• Morning Glories – Large flowers make pollination easy to see and perform.
• Peas – Mendel's original choice remains an excellent project for gardeners interested in genetics.
• Sunflowers – Large flower heads provide plenty of opportunities for experimentation.

What Might You Discover?

The first generation of seedlings may or may not resemble either parent exactly. That's part of the fun! Some offspring will show unexpected combinations of traits, while others may closely resemble one parent. Saving seed and growing subsequent generations can reveal even more variation.

Mendel spent years patiently observing thousands of pea plants to uncover the rules of heredity. While most gardeners won't conduct experiments on that scale, even a few hand-pollinated flowers can provide a fascinating connection to one of the most influential figures in horticultural science.

So this July 20, grab a small paintbrush, choose a couple of favorite blooms, and channel your inner Gregor Mendel. You might just grow something no one has ever seen before.