Aren’t plants considered asexual? If yes, how do they make plants have sex?
In: Biology
There are far more variations in plants then all land animals. So some are asexual, some are sexual, and some can be both. Most plants do have the ability to sexually reproduce. Plants do not generally touch when having sex. Older plant species would just spread their pollen into the wind and hope it lands on the seeds of a different plant. In order to increase their chances plants produce a lot of pollen and this can create air quality issues as the air becomes filled with pollen. Later on a branch of plants formed a symbiose with insects. They lures the insects close with colourfull flowers and sweet nectar and then cover the insects with pollen. The insects will visit flowers of other plants where the pollen will fertilise the seeds. This is much more efficient then just spreading the pollen to the winds. But both of these forms of sexual reproduction is used by plants today, as well as some more exotic forms.
But even plants which rely on sexual reproduction can typically reproduce asexually. If you split a plant in two it can usually grow from both halves. A common technique is to take a branch from one plant and then plant it and it will form a new plant. But most plants will still be able to sexually reproduce as well.
Plants are sexual. Seed plants “have sex” through pollination. In some plants the sexes of whole organisms are separate. Some plants have separate male and female flowers. Some have flowers with both male (stamens) and female (pistil) organs. Some plants generally pollinate themselves (like wheat), while most avoid self-pollination in one way or the other. But even with self-pollinating plants you can still do a cross-pollination if that is what you want.
Breeders can use various techniques to create new breeds of plants: selection (taking the part of population that has desired traits for further breeding), speeding up mutation (e.g. with radioactive materials), hybridization (using techniques that allow for breeding two different species, that would not normally breed) or even directed manipulation of DNA (GMO).
u/zeficu points out that plants mate through pollination. The mechanics of controlling that is pretty simple. They put a flower bud in a paper bag to prevent bees from pollinating it, and they remove the pollen producing parts to keep it from self pollinating. Then they use a paintbrush to put pollen from a different plant onto it, and mark the flower with some kind of tag so they can get the seeds when they mature. It is a little more complex with wind pollinated plants like most grain crops, but the basic idea is the same. Most plants produce many seeds from each flower, and many flowers on each plant, so it is possible to do a lot of tests in a small garden. Commercial breeders use greenhouses with artificial light to keep plants growing fast during all seasons. It still takes an extremely long time for tree crops like apples, because they have to wait a few years for the seed to produce the first fruit.
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