Very nice tutorial! Beautiful Pictures. My H. limifolia v. gigantea is throwin some seed now. Who knows what it was crossed with. I usually clip the peduncles...
Matthew

Great tutorial, Howard! You give me too much credit but I'm very glad if my efforts here have been helpful to some. I'm glad to see that this method works for you. As I stated when I sent you the link, I don't actually use this method though I've heard it gets tremendous results. I'm still content with the repeated ramming method; stuck in my bumblebee ways. One thing I might mention, I'm not sure that any Haworthias are self-fertile. If there are any, they'd be the exception to the rule. Also, no need to wait until the pod pops wide open to collect the seed - take the pod before it dumps, though the window is small between ripe and spilled. If you take the pod too early, the seeds may not ripen properly. If you wait too long your seeds will be sadly scattered. Check your pods daily.

Thank you. Great presentation. I copied it to my files to review when the time comes.

Quoted : Now, I just wish I had a greater variety of Haworthia! Anybody want to help me out, here....

Nice challenge for anyone, name (one or more) of all the haworthia species that Biker doesn't already have.

LOL, Nomen!!!! There's more than enough to go around and thank you for the compliment. Next winter, I'm moving into an underground bunker so the Haws can have a warm home....

What an awesome post. Thank you biker for putting it together and stush for bringing it back up. I recently tried the brush method and failed miserably. Can't wait to try out this other method. May I ask why the female donor needs to be emasculated? Does it just make it easier to pollinate or is there a specific reason?

Makes things easier and removes the possibility of pollen contamination.

Nicholas - Originally I wondered the same thing, but once you try the method it make complete sense. Removing the anthers and 3 petals for each flower makes the process SO much easier.

I have been placing the anthers on a cotton q-tip. The small amount of nectar lets them stick there, so they are easier to grab in the proper orientation to pollinate the stigma.

Howard - I tried self-pollinating three of my Haworthia but wasn't successful either. Still not sure if it is possible either, but I can try it on my mirabilis this week.

Thanks for the info, I wasn't sure if it somehow made that flower more receptive to pollen (which made me curious how it could possibly happen in nature). But ease of pollination and lower risk of contamination is a much more logical explanation.

When you say they are not self fertile, are you referring to the individual flowers or the plants themselves? Can you fertilize clones?

While I'm not 110% certain, pollinating a flower with its own pollen will not result in a seed pod. You can take pollen from one plant and pollinate the stigma of a different plant of the same species/clone. This last summer I pollinated my Haworthia truncata 'Milky Way' to another 'Milky Way' and got one pod. There were only a few seeds and none have germinated.

I have read somewhere applying cement dust to the stigma of monoecious non-selfing Euphorbia flowers, i.e., E. cap-saintemariensis, et al, will cause the pollen to "work" resulting in viable seed. I don't know if this will work with Haworthia.

Curiously wondering if a flower where to self pollinate would it be the same as a kieki ? Something I've not seen on any Haworthia.

Wouldn't a clone be considered as an offset or pup ?

In the orchid world a keiki is a plant grown on a flower spike. Haworthia can do this also but to what extent, I don't know. I did have my Haworthia truncata v crassa grow a plant on a spike. I posted a picture of it somewhere on the old GW; can't find the picture, now.

Found it: Haworthia truncata v crassa

This is where we are today. I think, because it is a 'seedling', it doesn't look like the parent plant and it needs brighter light to develop its normal growth form; it looks etiolated, to me.

I have now learned why leaving the upper three petals is best - it helps the stigma and ovary from drying out too quickly. If you have cool growing conditions, this is probably not an issue.

For me, my Haworthia are under lights and if the flower is close to the lights, the petals provide additional protection. A fan set on low can also help.

I'm still learning, but here is my current pollinating setup. The terra cotta pot is to bring the flower to an easier working level.

The parchment paper is used to lay down removed anthers/pollen. They don't stick and are easy to pick back up.

Coloured thread was used to identify what crosses I did. I made a simple knot, slipped them gently over the flower, and tightened them barely enough to stay in place.

Right now I am using three pairs of tweezers: large flat pair to hold the receptacle/inflorescence and two small pairs for manipulating the anthers and readjusting their position to make pollinating the stigma easier.

With practice, this is all getting much easier!

This was a nice read. The photos no longer work though so that's a little disappointing.

Since this was my creation, I will be happy to post new pics to the current Haworthia thread. https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/5130149/haworthians-page-7?n=195

All I see is something saying 3rd party hosting is disabled - whatever that means !!!

Spanish, it says that because I originally used Photobucket to post pics and no longer use it. Back in the day that was one of the only methods to upload pict to the old GW.

bikerdoc, thanks for the explanation, but I still see zilch of any use. I just upload directly from my files, or even straight from my camera if I don´t need to save the pic.