Botany

• Broccoli, which is a member of the Brassicaceae family, is a compact, rapidly developing floral vegetable that is usually harvested when the flowering heads are immature (Gray, 1982).
• The flowers are typical having 4 sepals, 4 petals, 6 stamens of which 2 are short and 2 carpels with superior ovary; the flowers are attached with the stalk with short pedicel.
• The anthesis of flower depends on the temperature and the flower open mainly during hotter part of the day.
• Broccoli is highly cross pollinated crop.
• Ninety five percent cross pollination has been reported in broccoli.
• The principal pollinating agent is honey bees and bumble bees. Some degree of self incompatibility and protogyny has been observed.
• The self incompatibility is of sporophytic type.
• The long receptivity of the flowers as reported earlier is due to protogynous nature of the flowers.
• It has been found that stigma of Brassica spp is receptive even 5 days before and 4 days after anthesis.
• The period from pollination to fertilization generally takes 24-48 hours, depending on temperature.
• The ideal temperature has been found to be 12-18 oC but continuous foggy weather with lower temperature effect both fertilization and development of seed.

• Higher day temperature is more harmful for fertilization since this cause pollen sterility.
• The fruit is a siliqua and often called pod.
• The seeds are small, globular, smooth and dark brown in colour.
• They are mostly embryo as the endosperm is generally absorbed in the formation of cotyledons.
• There are normally 12-20 seeds per pod and nearly 35,000 seed make 1,000 gm.
• The flowering period is rather short usually 20-25 days and the seeds mature at 45 -50 days after the end of the flowering.