Question about harvesting males (serious this time)

[THC•20]

Hello ICmag, I probably have made a thread like this before but now I seriously need your help. I'm not just asking about a male, I have a male inside of a (low budget) chamber and one of the pollen sacs has opened and now I see where the nanners come from on the female plants. I guess these are the things responsible for spreading the pollen, hanging on the thin strings from the opened pollen sac. So I'm wondering should I allow the entire plant to open it's pollen sacs or is there a specific method going about doing this? I was thinking I should carefully cut the open pollen sac off and dry it and try to extract the pollen from it, is that optional or would that be wrong to do?

Also is there any way I can dry and store pollen without adding any flour or gel balls or anything like that? I don't have any of those things but I'm going to need to store it for at least a few months.

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

Depending on how much pollen you need, you can put a cutting in a glass of water or go with the whole thing spewing at various times throughout it's cycle. Maintain 12/12 lights (if cutting, change water so it doesn't get slimy.) Put yer plant/cutting on a tray or table top. When the sacs open, scrape up the pollen and put it in a small container. I never tried to store it w/o a drying agent. Maybe dry rice would work? The color changing crystals are best. You know when to add if needed. A couple of months may require storage in fridge (may increase moisture and need for drying agent.) Never kept mine for more than a couple weeks in a cool place. I don't know about cutting unopened sacs and drying them. Mature sacs that open on their own is what you want yer bitches to get dusted with IMO. A typical cutting 8 or 10 in long seems to spew one or three pods a day. A whole plant might let go a lot more than you need.

A female nut doesn't necessarily hang like a grape. They usually grow up through the bud surface and stick out like a banana or nanner. They're usually a different color than the host bud and easy to see if you're looking for them. A cheap magnifying glass helps.

 

[THC•20]

No I was saying the nanners that grow on the females resemble the individual male flowers once the sacs open. And I'm not necessarily in the position to place my male anywhere besides where it's at, which is in the flowering room with my females. It has to share a room with my females as there is no other space available for any grow activity, so I can't risk opening the dome it's in every day, I don't want to risk a single bit of unintentional pollination. One of the pollen sacs has opened but I'm not sure if I should just let it hang until something happens or what, I don't see any pollen any where on the wax paper I have lying under it...maybe it's only a thin layer that has been shed. Lol it's funny I've harvested many females but this is my first time actually growing a male, I'm so confused

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

I'm no expert but the cuttings I've collected pollen from released in very small daily increments. You'll see open and wilting pollen blossoms easier than you'll see the dust. Fixing a way for the majority of dust to fall in a collectible place is key. I've seen pics of tin foil cupped underneath a male top and attached to the stem. A single top may take a while to accumulate pollen cause all these sacs don't always spew at the same time.

 

[THC•20]

Alright thanks man, I wish I had the space and option to grow my males from clone inside of some water, it does seem convenient for it to spew out pollen every few days. But I'll just deal with what I have, I plan on using the pollen in less than 3 months but I still want to use it later for another strain. Thanks for the advice though

 

[TroubleGuy]

I know you said you can't move it, but the best way I've seen was putting it in a seperate room, maybe in an unused cabinet or something. Put a sheet of glass or a mirror under it, tilt the pot and/or tie it to the side so it leans at a 45 degree angle over the glass, and put it under a couple CFLs for it's flowering cycle. No fans. The pollen and the pollen sac will fall straight down onto the glass and you can easily use a razor blade or credit card to pile it up and get it stored.
I wish I could find the topic that gave me the idea but at the time I wasn't looking at saving pollen so I didn't bookmark it.