[Siskiyou Sam]

Originally Posted by who dat is

I don't mean to be captain obvious but pollen doesn't work when it gets wet. That's how you can render it useless. To me what you are "creating" is simply fungus.

You do you though

No, after meeting some scepticism and with further research, I admit I probably have a photo of fungus. A higher magnification may help me to determine if the tube was indeed coming from a grain of pollen.
Found this photo of 6 h-old Arabidopsis pollen tubes, for a clue.

[Betterhaff]

The scale at the bottom of that picture shows a 200 micron bar. Obviously a microscopic shot. Those pollen grains are probably 15 – 20 microns in size. A micron is 1 thousandth of a millimeter.

[rexamus616]

heres a picture of sprouting pollen. (not cannabis though)



i can see what OP was getting at, but yeah, looks like 'cobweb mould'. (a fungus.... which can envelop whole buds quite quickly when it gets going)

Also, pollen, when hydrated, germinates in like 20 minutes (if i remember correctly?)

[kaosisallwesee]

You could try using selective agar media to assess the bio burden of your pollen. SAB plates would allow fungal growth, while minimising bacterial growth. Or you could culture some of the growth you already have.