Needs to cross pollinate with a different clone - what does this actually mean?

[BewareTheBeardedDragon]

A plant I'm interested in says it will occasionally set fruit if it is pollinated 'by a different clone' - what does this mean? Another of the same variety of the plant? Or a different variety of the same plant?

I'm always a bit baffled by cross pollination language...

(Plant is Akebia Quinata - chocolate vine, for full disclosure )

Basically it means an unrelated plant of the same species. A clone is a propagation from a single plant = identical, and therefore cannot pollinate itself. So you need another Akebia quinata that isn’t related to the one you already have.

That could be difficult, as you have no way of knowing whether another plant is a different clone or not, some plant species are mass produced by cloning a particular form, often by tissue culture.

Put simply, some plant genera are self-fertile and can pollinate themselves, while others are not, and must be pollinated by an unrelated clone.

Basically, a clone is genetically identical to the thing that it has come from.

If you have two plants grown from seeds from a plant that has been allowed to cross pollinate (get its pollen from a different plant), it's very unlikely that they will be genetically identical - the whole point of cross pollination/sexual reproduction is to introduce variability in the offspring, so if the growing conditions change, the parent may not cope but one of the children may.

But if you reproduce asexually - for example you take a cutting, or grow an offshoot - then the offspring will be genetically identical to to the parent.

Because the variation introduced by sexual reproduction is so useful in providing robustness for the species as a whole, many species have mechanisms to avoid self pollination - they may have male and female flowers on separate plants, they may have male flowers before female flowers - or, as Akebia quinata presumably does - they have a mechanism whereby the plant detects that the pollen has the same genetic make up as the plant itself, and aborts the process (usually by stopping the pollen tube growing so that fertilisation can't take place). So this will take effect if the pollen is its own, or if it is from a genetically identical plant.

And as Nan says, if most of the nursery trade is sourcing from the same supplier who is cloning large quantities by tissue culture it's going to be difficult to find a plant which isn't a clone of yours.

Does it make any difference that I'm planning to grow from seed? Will all the seeds in the packet be identical to one another?

There are colour variants available - so would getting two different colours mean they aren't identical?

Thanks for the detailed info

If grown from seed, they won’t be identical clones, so should cross pollinate each other with no problem.

Excellent! Thanks so much!!!

If the plant will set seed only when pollinated by a plant from a different clone, then the seed by definition will be the result of cross-pollination (self-pollination won't work), and therefore the resulting plants will be a mixed batch - you'll be very unlikely to pick two that are genetically identical.

This isn't necessarily a general rule - there are quite a few plants which are apomictic - they've dispensed with pollination and set seed anyway, so their seedlings are a clone of the parent - dandelions, whitebeams for example.

Oh yes - I see the logic, thanks! I shall order the seeds and see what happens!

I don't think they are very reliable at producing fruit in the UK if you leave it to nature. You might want to try hand pollinating them if you are keen to have fruit @BewareTheBeardedDragon.

Thanks - I'm mainly interested in not ruling fruit out iyswim
But good to know that hand pollinating is an option. I have failed spectacularly with that in the past for winter squash, so I'm not sure I have the skillz 😂

How are you pollinating your squashes?

What I do is wait till the afternoon (give the bees a chance), then pick a male flower, bend the petals back so the pollen-covered stamens are exposed, then push it into the female flower to make contact with the stigma, and leave it there.

That's exactly what I did - I think on advice from you on here before
You know how there's some things which just never seem to work even following the best instructions? This seems to one of them for me 🤦‍♀️
Though this year I managed a decent squash harvest leaving it entirely to chance, so I reckon I just need to pick good prolific squash! I managed 11 squash between 5 plants, which I think I pretty good going 😋😋😋

That makes me feel better! My average of two squashes on 2 container grown plants doesn't seem so bad! Finally finished the packet this year, and went out with a bang, with three squashes. Currently in pride of place on the kitchen island - DH likes to have the garden produce on display .

It can be the same variety, but not from the same set of cuttings.

Cuttings = cloning = asexual reproduction = one parent

Pollination = sexual reproduction = two parents.

@BewareTheBeardedDragon

Does it make any difference that I'm planning to grow from seed? Will all the seeds in the packet be identical to one another?

There are colour variants available - so would getting two different colours mean they aren't identical?

Thanks for the detailed info

The seeds should not be genetically identical as they are a result of sexual reproduction.

@MereDintofPandiculation my DM has never managed more than 2 squash per plant, she was impressed with my total! I had three vines which gave 1 each, then 8 between the other 2. I put it down to position and vigour. 2 of the 1 each-ers were butternuts which didn't properly take off until mid August, the other was a buttercup which probably did not have enough depth of good soil where it was, and had less sun. The two good ones were the same buttercup, but planted in full sun, on good deep soil and mounded up with lots of manure 

@CraftyGin thanks for the info!