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.

Thank you all for your comments. Mark, you are probably the closest to me in climate, although I think you are wetter overall and average a little warmer in winter than I am. I live in a giant rain shadow with generally low humidity, and I'm east of the Divide and have noticed that many (though by no means all) of the real arctic blasts seem to plunge down east of the Divide, leaving me in the frigid air while western Montana and Idaho stay relatively balmy. But, then the beauty of these valleys is that they get a batch of cold air and it just hangs around while the chinook zones start bouncing between +50 and -20, so that is a benefit even if eternal cold gets old. Seems the wisdom in my area is that if you aren't growing apples, it won't survive the climate. But, I've also found so many things that won't grow here that someone is growing successfully. They may get winter killed every 15 years and have to replant, or maybe in 25 or 50, but if you aren't growing commercially, I think it is worth trying and am prepared to occasionally replace trees after a bad winter if they are otherwise productive. I've seen St. Lawrence's site and have actually bought some pear trees from them several years ago. One of the trees has had fruit a couple times now and it is doing well. The others have bloomed, but never set fruit, so I grafted another variety to it this past spring to hopefully get a good nearby pollen source for cross pollination. My black walnut was a seedling I dug up from a grove in a little valley at the base of the mountains about 45 miles away. It was a few hundred feet in elevation lower than me, but I'm out in the flats and still at a low elevation--only 4,500 feet. I've noticed with native trees that only a few hundred feet in elevation can make a real difference in which ones grow wild and which ones don't, although the ones that don't can still usually be successfully grown at a bit higher elevation if transplanted, so I always wonder if I might be crossing an elevational line in trying things that tend to be marginal anyway. Anyway, I had gotten the impression that black walnut was the hardiest, so started with it. Now I'd like to experiment with some of the others, but since they grow to be pretty big trees, I can't do too many and still avoid underground drains or power lines above or interfere with areas outside the yard. Anybody know whether they are compatible to graft onto each other? That would be less space intensive, and I certainly would like to find out if I can get a carpathian type walnut to survive since I like them better than the black walnuts for eating.

rayandgwen, i bought my tree @5feet in a 3gal last year. It flowered the following season. old and big enough to at least have one fruit, I think. swrancher, I also have an Alano but it's small and hasn't started blooming yet, good to know it's self fruitful. Jeff, it sounds like makok needs other sapodillas around. I live where almost no one else has sapodillas. ch3rri, if you have two sapodillas how do you know they are self fertile lol. murahalin....how do you hand pollinate these flowers? I've picked some to study them, but I don't see any pollen. The flower "petals" just dry up and drop off. I think I will probably get the "Prolific", i like that name!

Kmekaru, like Gary mentions it is quite easy to pollinate the dragonfruit although I've never done it the blooms are so large it should be no problem. You would want to do the pollination in the evening when the flowers begin to open. From what I understand even different flowers from the same cultivar will not pollinate each other, you will require flower from a different cultivar to get it to produce fruits. It may be a bit difficult for your friend if all he/she grows is that one cultivar. Here's a picture of the open flower, get pollen from the anthers and brush it against the stigma. You must also know that some of the first Hylocerus sp. introduced here were grown mostly only for flowers, don't self pollinate and no fruit selection were done on them, most are of poor tastes. If someone has a large clump that rarely produced fruit for them, these were probably it. Some believe that the first self pollinating Hylocereus was a mutation in the Vietnames cultivars that were later introduced here to breed for self fertile varieties and taste.