HYB: pollen taking, crossing

Hi, all,

In my first year of making serious crosses, I've been experimenting 
with several methods of taking and laying-on of pollen, and thought I 
might share my results.

Once I've removed the stamens, I first tried to scrape it onto my 
palm/fingers with a metal nailfile, and pick it up from there to 
apply to the stigmatic lip.  This felt too violent to me, though, and 
often the file would do some shredding of the stamen, so it was hard 
to be sure what was pollen and what was stamen.  And the stamen was 
easily dislodged from my palm and dropped or was blown away.

I discovered a better way, for me, with the pollen I was taking to 
use later.  Those stamens I put in a plastic sandwich bag, noting 
what pollen it was on a self-stick label on the bag.  I noticed that 
generous pollen from those stamens were clearly visible and often 
deposited some on the inside of the bag.  By scraping pollen from 
stamens and bag with a toothpick while still in the bag, I lost no 
pollen or stamens, and the pollen was very visible on the toothpick, 
which could be slipped onto the stigmatic lip much more gently and 
safely.  (I know many use toothpicks, as I recall from last year's 
tongue-in-cheek tales of licking the toothpick before using on the 
next.)

Now I make up the bags ahead of time, with a blank label on a 
sandwich bag, a clean toothpick inside.  When I've taken the pollen, 
I simply record it on the bag, and use it either right away or fold 
the flap over, leaving it loose to dry the pollen if needed before 
using it the next day, or slipping it into the fridge to save until 
later.  (Thank you for that hint about drying before refrigerating, 
iris-talker whose name I forget and can't check while writing this 
message.  I've found since that I can take stamens which still look 
smooth and new, and have the pollen appear when dry.)

I've been carrying a hardback 5"x7" book, entering the cross when I 
take it, info about pollen, bloom dates, etc.  I fit everything in 
the many pockets of an army fatigue jacket, from camera to get a shot 
of each cvr as it opens, the pollen bags, pen, and book.  (My short-
term memory is so shot, if I don't get it down right away, it's 
unclear by the time I get back and try to record.)

Best pollen so far:  ELECTRIQUE, REINCARNATION, CHANTED, SWEET 
REFLECTION.

(I'll save my homemade marker solutions for that thread.)

Patricia Brooks
Whidbey Island, WA, zone 8



 

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index