Choose your parent plants, and decide which will be the mother, or seed producer. You may not get uniform seedlings, from 2 parents, as with humans!
You'd need to collect the pollen from 1 tulip, and add it to the 'castrated' female parent plant. Insects do this all the time, allowing pollen to rub off, onto the plants stigma. You need to remove the early emerging male stamens from the mother to be, to prevent any self-fertilsation occuring. This can be done with a tiny knife, like a scalpel.
You also need to cover the female flower over, to prevent insects etc. bringing in pollen - do this before the flower has fully opened, for 100% success. A paper bag etc. would be sufficient.
Find out how to identify the different sexual components of your flowers. The central stubby bit is the female stigma. The anthers, which produce pollen, are located around the center, and are carried on finer stalks. A photo and diagram can be found here:
http://www.biologie.uni-hamburg.de/b-onl...
I'd probably pollinate your mother plant over a few days, to improve your chances of success. You may use something like an artists paintbrush to transfer the pollen, or even use a few cut off stamens to do it - once cut-off, they will die, so can't be reused. The pollen is yellowy/orange and will be powdery when ready to pollinate another plant.
Hope these tips help. Contact me if you have any questions. Good luck! Rob
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Hi, I recently took an interest in hybridizing plants to get a jump start on my Plant Science class next year because it involves creating a new species of plant and I have tulips i would like to practice on. I am a little confused on what you mean by 'castrated' female plant. Do tulips not have specific genders?
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