Question

What is cross-pollination? Write advantages and disadvantages of cross pollination.

Answer 1

Cross Pollination: The transfer of pollen grains from the anther of the flower of one plant to the stigma of the flower of another plant of the same species is known as cross-pollination. As the pollination occurs between flowers of two different plants, genetics recombination is found in this allogamy.
Advantages:
(1) Cross-pollination brings about genetic recombination resulting into the origin of new varieties.
(2) The offspring produced through cross-pollination are healthy and stronger due to hybrid vigour.
(3) Numerous crop plants (such as sunflower, mustard, clover etc.) give higher yields if only cross-pollination is allowed to occur in them.
(4) Variations are produced due to cross-pollination resulting into the origin of disease resistant plants.
Disadvantages:
(1) Cross-pollination depends on the agents, hence, uncertainty is always there.
(2) Cross-pollination is not beneficial from economic point of view. The plants waste a lot of energy on various contrivances required to ensure cross-pollination and there is huge waste of pollen grains in this process.