Several days ago someone tossed me an interesting question. He had bought a fancy gourd some place and had saved the seeds. On two tries he had gotten nice plants but no fruit. His question was, "what was going on?"

My first inquiry was about pollinating insects. My second question was, does the plant have excess fertility? Both questions were answered to suggest that the problem was more elusive.

When I told my daughter about the conversation, I got a quick lesson in genetics. Let's start by saying that hybrids are common today because of their superior characteristics.

To get a hybrid, you must bring pollen from one plant to the flower of another. This can get laborious since most plants are self-pollinating and any self-pollination would destroy the hybridization process. You have all heard about the gangs of youths hired to de-tassel corn.

Plant breeders have developed male sterile lines of plants to facilitate the production of hybrid seeds with a lot less labor. Unfortunately, hybrid seeds produced with a male sterile parent will produce plants that produce sterile seeds. Flowers formed on such plants would not have the ability to produce male pollen and thus no fruit forms.

This may be the cause of the fancy gourd with seeds that will produce plants but no fruit. The solution would be to introduce a pollinator, but then who knows what the fruits would look like. In other words, if you plant seeds from a hybrid plant you can't predict what characteristics the offspring will display. They will vary greatly.

I also got a related question about how to get seed for a seedless watermelon. The temptation was to suggest, go to a seed store but that one too has an interesting explanation.

Most plants are diploids meaning that the plant cells have matched pairs of chromosomes, which divide in reproduction or seed production, producing another diploid plant. Plant breeders using either X-rays or a chemical process can produce plants with four matched chromosomes. These are called tetraploids. A lot of fancy large flowered daylilies are tetraploids. As in the last paragraph you will guess that when you cross tetraploids the matched chromosomes divide evenly, forming another tetraploids.

Seedless watermelons result when you cross a diploid watermelon with a tetraploid watermelon. The resulting offspring have three matched chromosomes and thus are unable to divide evenly resulting in sterility or the production of no seeds.

You can buy seed for seedless watermelons. In fact there are a lot of seedless varieties available. They remain much more expensive than seeds for a traditional seeded melon. Also, you must plant a separate pollinator with the seedless varieties.

It's amazing what the plant breeders are doing. Saving our garden seeds isn't predictable like it was when grandma and I gardened. Hybrids have created a whole new plant world. We will continue our visit to seeds next week.