October 1, 2015
Illustration by Elayne Sears, Mother Earth News
Learn about insect pollination, wind pollination and hand pollination to help you plant smarter and pull in heftier harvests. Read a blog post by Barbara Pleasant in Mother Earth News.
As humans, it’s hard to imagine sex without the ability to move, which is the fundamental challenge of plant pollination. To make seeds, reproductive cells (called “gametes”) from separate male and female cells must join, often from separate flowers and sometimes from separate plants — but the plants can’t move to help make the miracle happen. Instead, they rely on the resources around them: wind, insects, birds and, sometimes, people. Read more
