For indoor hydroponic garden, pollination is important:
- To ensure that the flowers on your plants are pollinated and produce fruit.
- To ensure that the pollen from one type of plant is not transferred to a different kind of plant, which could result in cross-pollination and genetic contamination
Hand pollination is the simplest and most common method of pollination in indoor hydroponic garden. It involves manually transferring pollen from the male organ to the female organ using a pollination brush. This method is easy to use and relatively inexpensive.
Many plants, including tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and melons require pollination in order to produce fruit. When growing indoors, we need to "be the bee" and perform this task ourselves if we want to enjoy vine-ripened tomatoes in the middle of winter.
Generally, there are two types of pollination for fruiting plants: same flower pollination and multi-flower pollination. Same flower pollination covers plants like tomatoes, peppers and eggplants. In these plants, pollen just needs to be released from one part of a flower to another part in the same flower in order for pollination to occur.
Plants that need multi-flower pollination include cucumbers, melons and squash. These plants produce both male and female flowers. For pollination to occur, pollen must move from the male flower to the female flower. Many plants will produce a large amount of male flowers first, then the female flowers start to appear. You can tell the difference between male and female flowers by studying them closely. Male flowers are smaller and you can often see the pollen as "dust" inside the flowers.
Female flowers tend to be larger and often have a small, unfertilized fruit at their base. For example, with cucumbers, you can actually see a small ½ inch long cucumber at the base of the female flowers. If left unpollinated, this will drop off. If pollinated, it grows into a full sized fruit. With practice and observation, you'll get good at telling the difference.