Can you pollinate a Gymnocalycium to itself?

This is perhaps the question that has bothered a lot of cactus hobbyist esp the new ones  due to the lack of factual information.

Gymnocalyciums are mostly "self-sterile" just like any other cacti in general. While ther are a handful of gymnos that can self-fertilize, nature does it's best to produce the best possible offsprings via cross pollination between different species. 

"Self-sterile" simply means it is NOT capable of fertilizing its own flower. This happens because the female organ (pistil) that receives the male sex cells (pollens) doesn't recognize it which eventually results into a failed pollination.

There have been studies about successful self-pollination but several abmormaliteies were found resulting from it. Either the seeds were found to be weak or the plant produced fruits bearing no seeds.

Gymnocalyciums than can self-pollinate are called "Self-fertile" or self compatible. This is because the pollens somehow "matches" the female organ and is accepted by it.

Common questions circulating about this topic are:

1. Can you pollinate the flower of the "pup" or baby cactus from the flower of its original plant (mother plant)?

ANS: It will fail if the plant self-sterile. this is the rule of asexual reproduction     where the genetic make-up of the mother plant passes it to all the babies (pups).

2. The gymnocalycium self-pollinated even if there were no other gymnocalyciums that were flowering too at that time

ANS: Other plants can also pollinate gymnocalyciums (we call this cross contamination). Another possibility is that the plant is actually self-fertile. 

Special notes on hybrids:

With the numerous crosses made with hybrids, we can't be certain about it's real characteristics or purity. It might have been  mixed with species that are self-fertile, who knows? This could be the reason why most mihanovichii in the market were reported to have fertilized themselves when they were supposed to be self-sterile.

As a closure to the topic, there are two things that I would suggest to you:

1. If you want to produce seeds, then go and find for another gymnocalycium to cross pollinate with the one you have. This is the surest way in doing it.

2. If you could spare a flower, try to experiment on your plant. This is the way you'll confirm if what you have can self-pollinate or not.

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