breeding Study on likelyhood of natural cross pollination of peppers

https://www.geneticsmr.org/articles/estimate-of-natural-crosspollination-rate-of-capsicum-annuum-using-a-codominant-molecular-marker-associated-with-fruit-pungency-7562.html

Thought this my be cool for some folks to look at as much as we talk about open pollination here.

Tldr: in this study cross pollination numbers were estimated to be lower than 2% in field annuums.

It was also found that the pungency allele was perfect for detecting said cross pollination. (between pungent and non-pungent cultivars)
 
Good stuff Kennylay!
 
A few other TLDR's
 
* Capsicum species have perfect (hermaphroditic) flowers, with male and female reproductive organs present in a single  flower,  which  makes  self-fertilization  their  major  mating  system  (Pickersgill,  1997).
 
* The  plants  tend  to self-pollinate prior  to  or  during  flower  opening  and  the  exposure  of  receptive stigmas  to  potential pollinators often occurs  after self-pollination (Melo  et  al.,  2014).
 
* Different  studies  have  shown  that  the  cross-pollination rate in Capsicum is highly variable, ranging from 2 to 90% (Tanksley, 1984; Pickersgill, 1997).  For example,  in  some  cultivars  of C.  frutescens the  possibility  of  cross-pollination  is  increased  by  morphological traits such as long styles, and it is reported to vary from 9 to 38% (Odlandand Porter, 1941).
 
* The rate of natural cross-pollination is influenced by several factors, including genotype, geographical location, climatic conditions, predominant pollinators and spacing between plants (Tanksley, 1984).
 
* [In this study of annuums] Each plot was composed of a row of 20 [homozygotic non-pungent] plants spaced 1.0 m apart.  [pungent] seedlings were then transplanted to the six rows to the left and six rows to the right of [the non pungent seedlings] at increasing distances of 1.2; 2.4; 3.6; 4.8; 6.0, and 7.2 meters. [thus no non pungent plant in the study had a pungent plant within 1.2 meters of it.]
 
* 10.8% of pods had at least 1 hybrid seed.
 
So, this has me thinking:
- how early relative to flower opening the stigmas become receptive and pollen is produced is highly important.  A tendency toward those occurring prior to flower opening or during would hugely reduce the potential for cross-pollination.
 
- If the flowers are not producing pollen yet are opening to expose receptive stigmas, and you don't have a row of homozygotic plants nearby, you're going to get 100% crosses. It seems this could result in a high percentage of crosses for smaller growers when conditions aren't proper for the production of pollen.
 
- Annuums have generally been highly cultivated and selected for consistent traits, so wouldn't that mean that a trait they have been selected for would be to avoid cross-pollination based on variables such as length of style and early self-pollination?  One might expect then that the less cultivated a variety is the more likely it is to cross-pollinate.
 
Something seems off here.
 
~1.2% cross-pollination with 1.2 - 7.2 meters of separation?
 
That's wildly different than I've been led to believe.
 
@canedog Great tldrs added, I got a little lazy, glad you liked the read!!!

@dontpanic I personally figured cross pollination wasn't optimal, as the plants are perfect flower plants. 1.2% does seem incredibly low though.
 
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