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Amaryllis Pollination – Hand Pollination Made Simple
Recently I posted a brief status update on the fabulous blooming amaryllis bulbs here in my home and that I would follow up with some training on amaryllis pollination. I first planted them back in mid- November and they began to bloom during Christmas week in December. These gorgeous blooms have brought much joy and pleasure to my home for almost a month now and believe it or not I still have one more bulb that is getting ready to bloom. I’m very curious to find out what color the blooms will be, because I neglected to note the color on each container when I planted them…oops!
In this segment, I will teach you how to hand pollinate the amaryllis blossoms so that you can get some great seeds to grow new amaryllis bulbs. Amaryllis pollination techniques is extremely simple and yields great results. Keep in mind that it takes anywhere from 3 to 5 years to grow a suitable amaryllis bulb from seed, however it will produce magnificent blooms for many years when taken care of properly.
I will provide the amaryllis pollination video demonstration of the technique below, however it is important to understand the female and male reproductive parts of the blossom so that you know why the steps are done in the manner they are done. The good news is that it is very easy to determine the female and male parts of the blossom.
The pistol is the female part of the blossom and the stamen is the male part of the blossom. The easiest way to tell the difference is by lookin at the "stems" coming out of the center of the blossom. There will always be 6 similar looking shorter filaments protruding out from the center of the blossom, and 1 longer stem. The longest stem is the female sexual part of the blossom and the tip of the pistol is called the stigma. The 6 shorter filaments with dangling "anthers" on the end of them are the male parts of the blossom.
The blossom is sexually mature from a male perspective when the yellow pollen dust appears on the anthers – they are the dangling sections of the male part of the blossom (at the end of the stamen filaments). They are not hard to miss as there are 6 of them.
The blossom is sexually mature from a female perspective when the stigma (the tip of the pistol) has split into 3. The end of the stigma will open and spread apart with 3 pieces bending out and backwards slightly. The 3 pieces of the stigma folding out and backwards will be a white color. This signifies that the blossom is ripe for pollination and fertilization.
To hand pollinate the blossom, you will use a soft bristled paint brush (a water color paint brush is ideal). Take the brush and lightly wipe the anthers (male part of the blossom) to gather some pollen onto the bristles and then lightly tap or touch the opened stigma areas (the 3 opened parts) to apply the pollen to the female part of the blossom. Once you have done this you have achieved amaryllis pollination.
It is okay to use the pollen from the same blossom to fertilize the female part of that blossom. It is also okay to use pollen from a different blossom for which this would be called cross-pollination. Cross pollination will result in mixed colored blossoms of bulbs germinated from the seeds of a blossom that had been cross pollinated.
Alright, that is all there is to amaryllis pollination – hand pollinating technique. Happy fertilization of your amaryllis plants! You can watch a demonstration video below.
