8. The Pineapple's Fascinating Pollination Process
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Many people are not aware of the amazing feature of pineapples' biology—their pollination process. Pineapples are mainly self-sterile and self-incompatible unlike many fruits that depend on bees or other insects for pollination. Pineapple blossoms cannot thus efficiently poll themselves or other blossoms on the same plant. Hummingbirds poll pineapples in their native habitat, moving pollen from one plant to another. Natural pollination is sometimes not relied upon, nevertheless, in commercial pineapple production. Rather, producers employ a variety of methods known as parthenocarpy—that is, fruit development induced without pollination—by means of which Plant growth regulators are a typical tool used to induce fruit development without pollination by means of stimulation This guarantees more constant fruit output and lets one better control the harvest timing. Fascinatingly, this procedure produces the lack of seeds in most commercial pineapples. Though they are far smaller and less obvious than the seeds in many other fruits, wild pineapples do generate seeds. Cross-pollinating some pineapple varieties—especially decorative ones—can yield viable seeds. Sometimes researchers and breeders employ hand-pollination methods to produce new pineapple types, delicately moving pollen between plants to produce desired features. Pineapples' complicated pollination biology shows the close link between plants and their pollinators as well as the ways in which human activity has altered the evolution of this beloved fruit.
