Video Transcript
The diagram shows how a pollinator
pollinates a plant by transporting pollen from one part of a flower to another part
of a flower. Looking at this picture, how can a
gardener artificially pollinate a plant? (A) As gardeners cannot fly, they
cannot perform the pollinators’ work. (B) The plant will pollinate itself
if the anthers continue to grow, so the gardener has to continue watering the plant
to give it the best conditions to grow and reproduce. (C) The gardener can do the
pollinators’ work of transferring the pollen from a flower’s anther to the stigma of
either the same or a different flower. Or (D) the gardener can remove the
stigma so that the eggs are more accessible to incoming pollen.
This question is asking us about
pollination. This process describes how pollen
can be transferred from a flower’s anther, where it is produced, to the same or a
different flower’s stigma. Pollen contains the male sex cells
of the plant. The stigma, on the other hand, is
part of the female sex organ of a flower. The stigma leads down to the female
sex cells, which are found within a structure called the ovary. Therefore, pollination is essential
for the male sex cells of a flowering plant to fertilize the female sex cells, the
egg cells.
Animal pollinators, such as
insects, birds, and even mammals, like humans, can be really helpful to transfer
pollen. When pollinators, like the bee in
the image provided by the question, visit flowers, some pollen rubs off onto the
pollinator’s body. Then, when this pollinator visits
another flower, the pollen may rub off the insect’s body and onto this flower’s
stigma. When humans specifically transfer
pollen from an anther to a stigma of the same or a different flower, this is called
artificial pollination. Often, this is carried out by
gardeners, farmers, or scientists to ensure that all of their plants are pollinated,
increase fruit production, or carry out experiments.
Knowing this, we can deduce that
the way a gardener can artificially pollinate a plant must be option (C). The gardener can do the
pollinators’ work of transferring the pollen from a flower’s anther to the stigma of
either the same or a different flower.
