Pollination tricks and saving pollen

Good info, I like the off-plant pollen harvest method.

I would not recommend mixing flour with the pollen before the pollen has dried out sufficiently. In fact, I would suggest not mixing your desiccants with the pollen if possible... small (open) tubes of pollen can sit in a sealed container surrounded by desiccant and accomplish the same thing, just close the tubes when you are satisfied that the pollen is dry enough.

I'd like to note that if you are going for long-term storage, getting the pollen as dry as possible is even more important, and I'd recommend not using a frost-free freezer since they go through freeze and thaw cycles.

FYI;
I 'borrowed' some pollen from a friend (who is a very experienced grower), He handed me a sugar sack with a 1/2 cup jar inside, rice in jar, with a Gelatin capsule in the rice. He had it in a freezer for storage. He also transported this to me in a cooler with frozen stuff around it. He told me to put the pollen package in the refrigerator for a couple of days prior to use....said it would mitigate any condensation problems.

It worked, I now have AK47 seeds.
I had popped AK47 seeds and got all females. What luck. lol

Note; I also did some searches of how the various 'gardening' clubs store their 'heritage' garden seeds. They all seem to use a deepfreeze for storage. One even described filling the excess space in the freezer with milk jugs filled with water, to keep the seeds cold for a longer period of time (in case of freezer failure).

Internationally there is a 'seed bank' that is in the permafrost (in Greenland I think), where countries keep their Heritage seeds from their individual countries.

I'm about to embark on an attempt to collect and save pollen myself. I found the empty Gelatin capsules at Whole Foods? (used to be Vitamin Cottage) here in Denver Metro.

Wish me luck!

Does anyone here remember the high school lab experiment where we germinated pollen using sugar water? I want to do this to check viability of my pollen and preservation quality prior to using it or giving it to someone to use. I was thinking it might be helpful to others so thought to ask on this thread.
Thanks

nan said:

Does anyone here remember the high school lab experiment where we germinated pollen using sugar water? I want to do this to check viability of my pollen and preservation quality prior to using it or giving it to someone to use. I was thinking it might be helpful to others so thought to ask on this thread.
Thanks

Click to expand...

Germinated,,,,,, Pollen..... ???? never did that.

Like to hear more about how that works.

I have a post on real easy ways to collect, dry and store pollen, my method produced good results 17+ years later with great success. I use a -30c freezer for storage, nothing added to the pollen, just pretty dry. If I knew where the post was I would post the link, but I forget..... If anyone sees it please post the link.
-SamS

nan said:

Does anyone here remember the high school lab experiment where we germinated pollen using sugar water? I want to do this to check viability of my pollen and preservation quality prior to using it or giving it to someone to use. I was thinking it might be helpful to others so thought to ask on this thread.
Thanks

Click to expand...

The classic method for this is from Brewbaker and Kwack (1963):
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2439772?uid=2&uid=4&sid=21105439531073

Prepare what is commonly called Brewbaker's solution:

• (in distilled water)
• 10% sucrose
• 100ppm H3BO3
• 300ppm Ca(NO3)2*4H2O
• 200ppm MgSO4*7H2O
• 100ppm KNO3

1. Place a drop of Brewbaker's solution on a slide or cover slip.
2. Dip an anther in the drop.
3. Flip the slide or coverslip over and suspend somehow.
4. Incubate at room temperature in a moist environment for at least 2 hours.
5. Observe/count germinated pollen.

Some additional references:
http://aob.oxfordjournals.org/content/80/4/401.full.pdf
http://www.pitt.edu/~kalisz/PollenViability1.pdf

Sam_Skunkman said:

I have a post on real easy ways to collect, dry and store pollen, my method produced good results 17+ years later with great success. I use a -30c freezer for storage, nothing added to the pollen, just pretty dry. If I knew where the post was I would post the link, but I forget..... If anyone sees it please post the link.
-SamS

Click to expand...

Here you go, good overview:
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?p=6127365#post6127365

Hard to find, it's in a stickied thread.

Also here's Sam providing more detail on his old pollen:
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?p=4004618#post4004618

Thank you!

Sam, is it the 'How old can pollen be alive' thread?

http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?threadid=238818

Chimera has a good thread on freezing pollen...sam has some good pointers on that thread.

sams: By the way thank you for your pollen and seed storage threads along with the threads on terpenes they are my favorite on icmag. Please keep contributing the knowledge your sharing it is invaluable to the community.