J Larsen
you could also take the male flowers from plants you’ve already marked, for things like robust growing, or first to sprout, etc. I like this idea I wonder if anyone has already tried it
Jesse I
Not sure how it’s with all the plants, but atleast some have same “winner takes it all” principle as humans. Even those that can have multiple, I would guess it’s still first come first served. So there might not be as much mixing as you would think, but maybe someone knows plant reproduction more intimately to elaborate on that. How you cross them depends much on the plant and their flowers. Cucurbits I have just taken female flower from one plant and pollinated other plant to increase outcrossing in general, but also give stronger plants better change. Didn’t use bagging unless really wanted some cross. In tomatoes or peppers this might not be as effective as flowers have their own pollen. Also they dont outcross as easily naturally so I want to make sure they cross as i dont have as much space to look for crosses. I dont bag them as removing pedals makes then quite unattractive to pollinators anyway. Might make manual crosses several generations to make sure there is good mixing before letting nature run it’s course mostly. Manually crossing those that do not outcross as easily does have the advantage that you know it’s a cross. Those that outcross more freely it’s easier to just let go of the control, but still I would make sure I get those first crosses to atleast give different varieties change to contribute.
Emily S
See, I got the idea because I found out that sperm doesn’t actually work on a “first-come, first-served” basis with humans. The egg will actually choose between a dozen or so of the early sperm that arrive, picking whatever seems most suitable. My suspicion is that gametes in other species likely work the same way. (It’s easy to find litters of multiple-birth mammals, like dogs and cats, where all the babies had a different father, for example.) If my hypothesis is correct, that means if you put pollen from ten plants onto that female flower within a few-minute period, I don’t think the first male flower to contribute pollen will have a significant advantage over the rest. Instead, whatever is the most suitable will probably get chosen. Since that specific plant is likely be more qualified to know which among those options is the best for its offspring, you might get the strongest possible offspring that way.
Ryder T
Just found this: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3576585/
Joseph L
that article makes it seem like the best answer is to take a q-tip and just use the same q-tip for all the blossoms that are out of a given plant like you’re a bee, then a new q-tip for the next plant type.
Jesse I
Ok, did not think that way, but still it wouldn’t lead to multiple fathers I think; either it says yes to all or no to all of one kind. Maybe if the timing is just right, but only for those species that can be pollinated by multible pollen. I did try similar idea with peppers once, but was told that only one pollen does the pollination on peppers (thus comparison to humans). So nature is wastefull. Many flowers have limited timespan soI would think they would take any suitable pollen, but your right they might reject some. I think that would be self-incompatibility though.
Emily S
Interesting! So that probably wouldn’t work well on peppers. I wonder if that’s true of all nightshades. Has anyone ever seen multiple fathers in seeds from the same tomato, potato berry, eggplant, tomatillo, ground cherry, or another nightshade? My (admittedly limited) experience with pepo squashes indicates that this would work well for them. The seeds I saved from the same spaghetti squash fruit included a) obvious purebreed spaghetti squashes, b) obvious spaghetti zucchini crosses, and c) obvious spaghetti pattypan crosses. My suspicion is that if it works well on pepo squashes, it will probably work well on most cucurbits.
Julia D
Yes… Darwins’ book describes how they first pollinated a plant with a sibling, then a few days later pollinated with a non related plant. Plant rejected the first one in favor of diversity… There’s a lot out there on quantity and diversity of pollen increasing everything. Bill Whitson (cultivarable) described something like collecting pollen from a bunch of different donors, aggregating it, then going around dusting it on other receptive potato flowers. I think you should do this for sure, and make a whole video about exactly how you do it and why 
Just make it easy enough for me please!
