Palm pollination -- how and which?

[DoomsDave]

Howdyall:

Matt's dypsis thread inspired my pea brain to get active and wonder how various palms are pollinated.

There's a perception they're all wind pollinated, but I know that's not true. For sure, Archontophoenix are among the best "bee trees" I have ever seen.

Anyone know anything of interest?

[DoomsDave]

doink

[freakypalmguy]

My Phoenix caneriensis are swarming with bees after an inflorescence pops open and and the same for Butia, but I have also seen ants on my butias, which I would think they could tranfer pollen also.

[tjwalters]

Ants on Sabal minor, and if I'm not mistaken, small bees and flies, too.

[Jose Maria]

Here in Costa Rica we plant alot of african oilpalm Elais guineensis ( more than 50.000 hectres) and for many years it was believed that pollinating was job for the wind...

Until research proved that in Africa there was a small bug, Eladobius kamerunicus, that improves the yields of fruit ...

They were imported and now live happily eating pollen all day long and all over the country they can be found in palm plantations, they do a great job, better than the wind.

On the other hand, thera are some nice specimens of hurricane palm here( Dyctiosperma album) large palms wth flowers,....but never a fruit....must be the pollinator is still back in tha Indian ocean??

[Jeff zone 8 N.C.]

Dave, I know Butia's and Sabal palmetto as well as S. minor are pollinated by all kinds of bee's and wasp's. While hybridizing a Butia this year I even saw one of our native anoles licking up the sweet nectar from the flowers and so he had pollen sticking to him too. They move around quite a bit hunting so he probably made it over to some of the nearby Butia's.

[tjwalters]

A related question: How does one go about hybridizing monoecious palms? How does one prevent self-pollination and ensure the female flowers are pollinated by the pollen from the desired species? I've wondered about this and how one would cross Sabal minor with S. uresana. How do you guys (and/or gals) do it?

[DoomsDave]

doink

[freakypalmguy]

A related question: How does one go about hybridizing monoecious palms? How does one prevent self-pollination and ensure the female flowers are pollinated by the pollen from the desired species? I've wondered about this and how one would cross Sabal minor with S. uresana. How do you guys (and/or gals) do it?

Hi TJ,

You must very carefully remove all male flowers from the inflorescense after it first opens and before the females reach anthesis. Then it is best to cover it untill the female flowers are receptive, then uncover and hand pollinate, then recover untill after the female is no longer receptive. I've only done this for the first time last year so, I'm sure some of the more seasoned pros (Merril, Mark Heath, PalmGuyWC, and Tim Hopper) can fill in what I have left out.

Good luck,

Matt

[Howeadypsis]

Many monoecious plants have male and female flowers that open at different times so its simply a matter of isolating the females and removing one or the other.

I've never actually seen a palm flowering but I always imagined them to be wind pollinated as the flowers aren't showy. Do they carry scent at all? That would indicate night flying insects or bats as pollinators.

[tjwalters]

A related question: How does one go about hybridizing monoecious palms? How does one prevent self-pollination and ensure the female flowers are pollinated by the pollen from the desired species? I've wondered about this and how one would cross Sabal minor with S. uresana. How do you guys (and/or gals) do it?

Hi TJ,

You must very carefully remove all male flowers from the inflorescense after it first opens and before the females reach anthesis. Then it is best to cover it untill the female flowers are receptive, then uncover and hand pollinate, then recover untill after the female is no longer receptive. I've only done this for the first time last year so, I'm sure some of the more seasoned pros (Merril, Mark Heath, PalmGuyWC, and Tim Hopper) can fill in what I have left out.

Good luck,

Matt

Hmmm... Can palms having flowers with both male and female parts (I don't know which palms that might be) be hybridized. Seems like it would be extremely difficult.

[PalmGuyWC]

Matt,

You are correct with your technique. It's fairlly easy to remove the male flowers on monecious palms where the male and female flowers are seperate, such as the cocoid palms. I'm to lazy to look up the technical term, but many palms have both the female organ and the male on the same flowers, and it's almost impossible to prevent self polonization. Sabals and Trithrinax and many others have both sexes on the same flowers. Any hybrids from these kinds of palms would be a hit and miss situation, but it does occur in nature.

Many palms including the cocoid ones are both wind polloniated and by insects. Sabal flowers are very fragrant and so are Trithrinax and mine are covered with bees when they are flowering. Chamaerops and Tracheycarpus are mostly wind pollinated. They are dioecious, and if I want a good seed set, I cut off a male inflorescence and shake the pollen over the female flowers and get almost 100% seed set.

Some palms such as some of the Chamaedoreas have stickey pollen and are pollenated by specialized insects or they can be hand pollenated with a brush.

After the male flowers are removed from a monecious plant and before anthesis of the female flowers, it's very important to cover the inflorescence so that no errant pollen can reach the female flowers. Light weight tightly woven canvas bags seem to do the trick or a tightly woven pillow case.

Dick

[Kris]

Dear Dave

Nice topic...And whenever i asked that kind of question,in reference to phoenix.the answer i got was phoenix palms readily hybridise with other phoenix.but never got any detail explination as seen above..

And thanks for the explination,to those who have interacted in this thread.

Lots of love,

Kris

[Howeadypsis]

Howdyall:

Matt's dypsis thread inspired my pea brain to get active and wonder how various palms are pollinated.

There's a perception they're all wind pollinated, but I know that's not true. For sure, Archontophoenix are among the best "bee trees" I have ever seen.

Anyone know anything of interest?

Dave,have a look at this page. It seems it may be Beetles

http://zipcodezoo.com/Plants/D/Dypsis_ceracea/

[PalmatierMeg]

My spindle palms (Hyophorbe verschaffeltii) are pollinated by small bees. And the flowers smell wonderful, kind of like Juicy Fruit gum. The bees did a phenomenal job. I have 1,000s of seeds.

[Ntheastpalms]

Lodoicea maldivica is pollinated by a small green gecko (lizard).

Most of the large flowering palms in my garden are pollinated by native birds, native & european bees during the day & nectar eating moths & fruit bats during the night as well as many other species of insects that are present in the flower if you look closely.

[Jose Maria]

Pollinating palms that have male and female flowers separate on the same palm, like in Elaeis guineensis, ( African oil palm) is "easy", because once you isolate te female flower before it opens with a bag, no pollen will enter, only the pollen you apply collected from another tree.It is one of the current methods used here to produce hybrid oilpalm-seeds.

In the case of both male and female organs in the same flower we are in a situation comparable to the one in the hybridizing of rice (Oryza sativa), where it is done by heating( sterilising) the male part of the flower with hot water from a thermos bottle......, and then applying pollen from another rice variety.

I have no knowledge if this can be done with palms...

Edited April 19, 2009 by Jose Maria