Our field has been blooming now for about 5 days. People love to look at a
blooming sunflower field. A lot of people have been stopping to take pictures
and walk through the field. As you can see, there's a wide range of blooming
stages across the field. We'll be looking more closely at that
later.
 This plant is at the R5.5 stage, which as you probably remember R5 means
it's blooming and the .5 means that 50 percent of the head has bloomed or is
blooming. Let's look a little closer at this plant.
 This is a cross-section of the R5.5 head. On the outer edges you see
white columns with their floral parts above. These are flowers that have
been pollinated and seeds are developing. In the center there are
smaller columns, which are flowers that haven't bloomed yet, so they are
unpollinated flowers. The base of the head is called the receptacle with its
white, starchy, pithy area under the flowers.
 Now, we're taking a closer look at about 6 rows of flowers on the outer
edge that have been pollinated and you can see the seeds or botanically,
achenes developing. To the left you see about 4 rows of flowers with their
stigmas emerged and then the unpollinated flowers in the center of the
inflorescence.
 The flower on the left is from the head's center area, which hasn't
bloomed yet and on the right, this seed is from the first six rows of
flowers.
 This plant is at the R5.6 stage.
 This plant is at the R5.7 stage.
 This plant is at the R6 stage. R6 is the stage at which flowering is
completed and the ray petals are starting to wilt.
 This is a cross section of the R6 plant. You can see stigmas of flowers
in the center. So, this would be considered an early R6 plant because it is
flowering today.
 Here's the range in seed or achene development. On the left is the flower
from the center with the exposed stigma and on the right is a seed from the
outer area that flowered 4 or 5 days ago.
 There's always one
in a crowd, huh? This is an off-type plant. Why is
this plant different from the others? Good question. Well, in the seed
hybridization process there are plants used as the pollen source for plants
from which seed is saved. Seed from the pollen-providing plants is not
saved. However, sometimes a stray seed finds its way into the saved seed.
This is the result. |
Our field has been blooming now for about 5 days. People love to look at a
blooming sunflower field. A lot of people have been stopping to take pictures
and walk through the field. As you can see, there's a wide range of blooming
stages across the field. We'll be looking more closely at that
later.
