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Santa Cruz, CA

Lets say the female has five ovaries and each is pollinated by the same male flower. As the pumpkin matures each ovary has a pocket of seeds segmented out inside the pumpkin. Each segment has like but not identical genes to the other segments.(Like a puppy litter) Does each segment have identical genes or does each segment have the same ovary (from the female seed) with each seed having individual pollen (thus different male genes)from the male flower. If one male pollen makes it to the female ovary are all those seeds in that pocket identical?

8/26/2007 12:55:54 AM

Eugene,OR

The way I understand it, each seed is pollinated by a different grain of pollen. Seeds in a pumpkin which are pollinated by a single male could be considered "brothers & sisters" (if they were humans). I don't think that the separate ovaries have a whole lot to do with it.

8/26/2007 10:08:39 AM

Little-TON - Colorado

Great post, please those that have info, chime in please....

8/28/2007 9:27:59 AM

western PA

let me think off hand. its been a few years but.. i think Russ is half right. one pollen to a seed. However, the ovary of the flower is the part that turns into the fruit. Ovules within the ovary are what turn into the seeds when pollinated with a pollen grain.
a pollen grain that lands on the stigmatic surface of the stigmata (on the female) grows a tube to reach one ovule within the ovary.
Now if a female has 5 Stigmas (the lobes) and one male flower is used to pollinate all five lobes.

8/28/2007 12:43:39 PM

western PA

each ovule within the ovary is identical and each pollin grain from the anthers of the male are identical.

when the pollination takes place and the genetic material is combined, for the most part the seeds end up pretty identical to one another. but there could be differences.

they would be like "brothers and sister" but they would be more like twins.
thats my take Kristine.

but I could be wrong..

8/28/2007 12:57:38 PM

western PA

Sounds logical, but then why do brothers and sisters sometimes look so different?

My guess is, eggs and sperm, or ovules and pollen, only get half of the producer's genes - and there's no telling which half. So they aren't identical. But I'm no expert, I could be wrong, too. :)

9/4/2007 8:41:14 PM

Washington

In people, siblings do not have identical DNA even though they are from the same parents. Identical twins who marry identical twins produce children who are genetically siblings even though they are cousins. Confused???? The reason siblings can look so different from one another is that they inherit different traits from their respective parents. Pumpkins also carry those different traits in their seeds. That's why you will find that some pumpkins like the 1068 Wallace may produce seeds that produce pumpkins with different characteristics. It goes back to dominant and recessive genes.

9/5/2007 1:30:37 AM