To the plant, pollination is pollination. To the gardener who wants particular results (such as wanting to keep an heirloom variety pure), cross-pollination (cross-breeding) is something to avoid. To a grower or scientist who is trying to create a new variety, cross-pollination is desirable. It's all on your point of view. Like Dave said, some varieties are very genetically stable, like his Nantes carrots. Others, like curcubits, are notorious for cross-pollinating. If you're growing certain kinds of decorative gourds, and zucchini or other squashes, insects will cross-pollinate them very easily, and if you saved the seeds from your wonderful zucchini and planted them, they could end up being something almost unrecognizable and tasteless. "Does cross pollination always create a hybrid?" Yes and no. Technically, every pollinated plant is producing a hybrid, because every plant from every seed has a tiny, microscopic difference from the plant next to it, although it is, for most purposes, the same. Only cuttings, cloned or tissue-cultured plants are exactly the same as the parent stock. Plants labeled 'hybrids' have been crossed from plants with noticeably different qualities. If you crossed two of these 'hybrids', they would most likely revert back to the qualities of one or the other of the 'parents'. Granny Smith apples came from crabapples. If you planted a Granny Smith seed and nutured it for several years, you would probably end up with some sort of crabapple or similar variation. Two additional bits of info (just to confuse you a little more ;-) ): 1) You can be growing two similar plants near each other, but if they flower at different times, they won't (can't) cross-pollinate. Corn is a good example: there are early, mid-season and late varieties of corn. Corn cross-pollinates easily because it's wind-borne, but if they tassle (the 'flower') at different times and there is no other corn around (esp upwind), they won't cross. If Alfie's apples (above) needed a pollinator variety, and he accidentally planted a variety that bloomed a month after his Macintosh, he wouldn't get any apples. 2) OP varieties can be 'manipulated' even within the variety. You can have a packet of seed of a single variety of an OP plant, and each seed inside will have a tiny difference about it. Many people will grow a particular variety that they like, and they will watch for 'special' ones among that variety: a tiny bit earlier, a slightly larger fruit, a sweeter flavor, a slightly higher yield, etc, and they will mark it and let a few fruits of that plant mature and collect the seed. The next year, they plant that seed, and again look for 'special' plants. Every year, they keep doing this, and end up (hopefully) with localized variety within a named variety that is especially suited to their local conditions. It's still the same variety, it's still OP, it's just an improved variation within that variety. If you bought seeds from a grower in BC, and you bought the same variety from a grower in ON, the local seeds might produce plants that had a slight edge on local conditions, concerning earliness, adaptibility to hot summers, or ability to grow with a bit less water. The seeds from BC might adapt better to cooler summers, more humidity, and a longer season.

I think where we are getting our meanings crossed is whether we are talking from a scientific (including biology and botany) standpoint or a layman gardeners. Coming from a biology background to me, hybrid means exactly what I said before. The offspring of different breeds, varieties, genre or species. This occurs naturally on a pretty regular basis without any input whatsoever from humans. It is a mechanism for evolution and adaptation and has been happening for longer than human beings have walked on the earth, let alone been domesticating and breeding plants for agriculture. Are all of these matings successful? No, many are dead ends resulting in weak, unviable, or sterile offspring. This is particularly in the case of animals. Plants have a much greater ability to hybridize successfully and some will even argue that hybidizing is the rule rather than the exception for many of them.* On the other hand gardener, whether professional or hobbiest, may have a totally different opinion on these terms. A hybrid to them may mean only those cultivars that are purposefully bred between different parents by humans. The hybrid tomatoes you find in the Burpee or Johnny's catalogs if you will. While they reserve the term "cross" for the serendipitous breeding that takes place in the uncontrolled environment of their gardens. So who is right? Well, neither is necessarily wrong, it just depends on the indeviduals background and understanding of these terms. Its much like the word "variety." You will hear many people use the word variety to descibe different tomatoes, however the techincal term is actually "cultivar." Variety is its own taxonomic rank below that of species and subspecies and a plant can be both a variety and a cultivar. Some horticulturalists get nitpicky, but I have to wonder if its really worth the energy to get your feaths ruffled when chanves are you know exactly what the person means. Now that all being said I would have to disagree with unequivocally saying that the standard definition of a hybrid is ONLY the result of planned and purposeful breeding of two different species or cultivars and everything else is a "cross" or some other term. Technically the opposite is true. The standard definition as applied in science (which biology, botany, and horticultural all are) is the first one I gave. But again, as long as we all know what the heck we are talking about, thats really all that matters. We're literally just arguing semantics here. *It is important to note that some taxonomists will say that the ability for two organisms to successfully hybidize is grounds for considering a change in classification. This is especially true for intergeneric hybrids. But its also important to note that taxonomists are constantly arguing between the "lumpers" who like to combine different species into one and the "splitters" who like to divide and make new species. Grab a couple dichotomous keys by two different authors and your pretty much guaranteed to find discrepancies between them.

Avocados come in A or B for pollination purposes. For best results one of each is required. It is a matter of the pollen being released when the female is receptive. With a seedling you will have no way of knowing what you have and several years before knowing if you will have fruit. Your local county extension service should be able to answer questions regarding your chances of success in your climate. Al

The specific variety is "orange crisp hybrid". According to the packet they get 16-20 pounds, although I don't always trust the packets. Upon closer inspection I noticed that there are more than 10 seeds, and some are smaller than others, I'm assuming these are the plants that will produce a seedless orange watermelon, and the big seeds are the pollinator? Correct me if I'm wrong as I have no experience with melons...If I plant one mound with small seeds and one mound with the large seeds I can thin them to one plant/mound and will end up with two plants. One will produce my seedless orange crisp and the other will produce some mystery type of watermelon plant? Will the pollinator plant also produce edible fruit? According to the local agricultural college I can direct sow, which I would prefer, I have a poor history with transplant attempts, but maybe since this is a hybrid I need to try to start indoors? I blame my MIL and the book "rainbow garden" for my current confusion! Thankfully the purple beans were a bit more self explanatory, and next year I'm going to check out some of the other varieties you mentioned. The ice box sized melons sound intriguing, and hopefully we won't be needing yellow next summer?