So interesting! Thanks for sharing. Interestingly I also recently discovered that pollen can become sterile under extremely high temperatures. I discovered this after noticing that my tomato plants had an abundance of flowers but quite a lot of the fruit didn’t set, I then synchronistically read an article on Substack that explained about the sterile pollen. We had temperatures of 43 degrees here in Portugal around the time the flowers were blooming so it makes sense. It’s worrying though…

I’ve also noticed that although the blackberries here in Portugal are tasty, they are very different to the blackberries I’m used to back in Scotland and England. They are smaller and waaay less juicy. I presume because it is so much drier here, although perhaps a different variety too.