What does it mean to be self-pollinating?
As a gardener, I’ve always been fascinated by how all the different plants in my yard flower and then fruit.
We commonly associate the term “fruit” with the fleshy, seedy, sweet, or sour parts of plants like bananas (which are, in fact, herbs and berries in the world of botany), apples, lemons, and mandarins. But scientifically speaking, a fruit is the structure on a plant that disseminates seeds, including squash, cucumbers, beans, peas, peppers, eggplants, and tomatoes.
These vegetables are known as self-pollinating plants; that is, they reproduce via the transfer of pollen from the anther (male part) to the stigma (female part) of the same flower, or another flower on the same plant.
Self-pollinating plants do not have to receive pollen from other plants in order to produce fruit and set seed. (This is why they’re sometimes referred to as self-fruitful or self-fertile.)
Some plants, like tomatoes, grow with both male and female parts on each flower (known as “perfect,” or complete flowers).
Tomatoes can be pollinated simply by growing outside in the breeze, or—for greenhouse-grown plants—sitting near a fan or having the vines lightly rattled to help some of the pollen drop from the anther to the stigma.
Other plants, like corn, have separate male and female parts on the same plant that have to be pollinated by wind. Each corn stalk has (male) tassels and (female) silks, which are fertilized when the wind shakes some of the pollen off the tassels and onto the silks.
When this happens, babies happen—in the form of every fertilized silk turning into a corn kernel.
Missing kernels on an ear of corn means the silks weren’t fully pollinated, or there wasn’t enough pollen to go around (since a stalk may have three or more ears waiting to be pollinated).
Another type of self-pollinating plant is summer squash and winter squash (and all other members of the Cucurbitaceae family), which have separate male and female flowers on each plant.