Pollination – Types, Benefits and Disadvantages

Introduction to Pollination:

Pollination is the process by which pollen is transferred from an anther (the male portion) of a plant to the stigma (the female part), allowing for fertilization and the development of seeds.

As a result of pollination, edible fruits and seeds that will grow new plants are produced.

Flowers are the source of pollination.

Insects play the role of “pollinators” by moving pollen from blossom to flower.

Examples of insect pollinators include butterflies, moths, bees, and flies.

When an insect comes to a flower to pollinate it, it is usually in search of food.

However, while they are eating, they unintentionally spread pollen across flowers, assisting the plant in producing fruits and seeds.

The pollination process starts when pollen grains from the corresponding flowers land on the stigma and join with the style length to produce a pollen tube that connects the stigma and ovary.

The pollen grain begins transporting sperm cells from the grain to the ovary after the pollen tube has been fully formed.

When the sperm cells reach the ovary and egg cells, the process of plant fertilization will begin.

Using the pollination method, the seed is then dispersed from the parent plant, enabling it to develop into a plant and carry on the reproductive cycle.

Explanation:

For reproduction, all plants with flowers are wholly dependent on pollination.

There are two types of pollination:

Self-pollination

The fact that it involves just one flower gives rise to the name “primary kind of pollination.”

Pollen grains enter the flower’s stigma directly from an anther which causes self-pollination.

Given that the sperm and egg cells of the flower share some genetic information, this procedure is fairly quick and easy, which reduces the genetic variety.

Benefits and Drawbacks of Self-Pollination

Recessive traits are completely wiped off by self-pollination.

Compared to cross-pollination, there is extremely little pollen grain waste.

Because there is no genetic variability during self-pollination, the purity of the race is preserved.

External elements like wind, water, and other pollinating agents are not involved in self-pollination.

Self-pollination makes it possible for even a tiny amount of pollen grains produced by plants to have a high success rate in pollination.

Disadvantages

The main drawback of self-pollination is that there is no gene mixing.

As a result, the race’s vigor and vitality are diminished. The resulting progeny have lower disease immunity.

A cross-pollination is a complicated form of pollination that enables the transport of pollen grains from a flower’s anther into its stigma.

As a result of sharing and combining their genetic information to produce distinctive offspring, this strategy increases genetic variety.

Cross-pollination Methods

Animals, birds, wind, insects, water, and other biotic and abiotic elements such as these act as pollinators during the cross-pollination process.

Anemophily or Wind Pollination

Only a limited number of flowers undergo wind pollination, and they are characterized by having small, odorless, greenish blossoms.

These flowers don’t draw pollinators; therefore, their energy isn’t used to produce vibrant petals.

This sort of pollination typically takes place when plants lack nectar-producing blooms.

The female reproductive portion of a flower, the stigma, is very large, sticky, and feathered to reach fully outside the bloom.

The male reproductive parts of anemophilous flowers tend to produce huge quantities of pollen.

Therefore, there is more pollen for them to get.

Examples include coconut, palm, maize, grasses, and all gymnosperms.

Animal Pollination – Zoophily

Many animals help in the transfer of pollen from one flower to another.

Also, they support the spread of seeds. An animal changes its location after consuming a plant’s fruit.

This movement aids in the dispersal of the seeds, bringing new plants to new areas.

Entomophily:

It refers to the process of pollination in which insects move pollen from one flower to another.

Bees, butterflies, wasps, moths, and many different flies, including hoverflies and many different beetles are some examples of insect pollinators.

To produce the seeds and fruits (from apples to numerous wild hips, nuts, and berries that humans and wildlife depend on), many plants, flowers, and trees rely on insects.

Anthropophily – Artificial Pollination

Humans perform artificial pollination.

The anthropophily is another name for this process.

The artificial method of pollination is carried out by scattering pollen grains over the female flowers if there are any issues with the process of pollination by abiotic or biotic agents.

Techniques for hybridization are also applied in this procedure.

Benefits and drawbacks of Cross-pollination:

Benefits:

The seeds that are produced have good vigor and viability.

Through the process of cross-pollination, all unisexual plants are capable of reproducing.

Genetic recombination causes the recessive traits in the lineage to disappear.

This procedure raises the offspring’s resistance to illnesses and other environmental variables.

Cross-pollination brings new genes into a group of species, primarily as a result of the fertilization of gametes with distinct genetic make-ups.

Disadvantages

Pollen grains are wasted significantly during this process.

In offspring, there is a possibility that desirable traits will be added or removed due to genetic recombination that occurs during meiosis.