In article ,
K wrote:

Sorry, I don't follow. Yes, the plants will be cross pollinated - but
how does this affect the fruit? The fruit is formed vegetatively from
the parent plant, as I understand it, it's the seed itself which
contains genetic material from both parents, so that any plant growing
from the seed will be the result of cross pollination.

Nope. It ain't that simple. Nowhere NEAR that simple. When trying
to understand an explanation of Ipomoea indica/learii's complicated
infertility, I found out a little of this. My attempts to find out
a a coherent description of the fertilisation process in vascular
plants was a dismal failure :-(

It seems that the pollen grains germinate on their own, and some
haploid cells then move towards and merge with the ovary. Depending
on the plant, seeds can have components that are derived from the
combination, the ovary alone and the pollen grain alone, or even
all three. Maybe. Or maybe not. Trying to reverse engineer an
explanation of what is happening in a process that complicated from
incidental remarks in scientific papers in a field that one is not
an expert in is, shall we say, inclined to lead to misunderstandings.

So what I'm asking is whether there is a mechanism by which the genetic
material from pollen can affect the development of the fruit (as opposed
to any seeds that fruit contains), and, if so, what that mechanism is?

Yes, there is. Definitely. Whether the mechanism is unknown even to
the experts, or merely known only to such experts, I don't know.
Given my record of asking such questions, it's about as likely either
way.



Regards,
Nick Maclaren.