Re: HYB: Save & Storing Pollen - pill boxes

<...little piece of paper on the bottom of the compartment would annoy
me and the same with a big ol sticker.>

Some clarification (tho I recognize this is a temperment thing <g>).  At
the beginning of pollen collecting time, I cut a bunch of little
rectangles/squares out of index cards or other card stock.  These are
cut to fit neatly in the bottom of the compartment, labeled with fine
point Sharpie.  Ok, I'm lying, it started out with torn scraps of
notepaper scribbled on with whatever was handy <g>. I quickly learned it
was too easy for the anthers to get underneath the paper scraps, & too
hard to get them back out again, so switched to the stiffer card stock &
for better legibility, switched to Sharpie pens, when I can find them in
the usual clutter here.  Something about those neat little nibs on the
pens inspires neater handwriting for some reason..... The better the
square of card stock fits the compartment, the less it will flop on top
of the anthers.

The little sales stickers come in various sizes.  I use the little ones
that are about the same diameter as the lid of the compartment.  They
don't stay on very well, so I only use them for temporary "here's the
one I want tomorrow" labels while indoors enjoying the AC.

As for number coding, waaay back when I used to process various kinds of
samples (dirt, plant parts, etc) for ecological research, I learned the
hard way that my brain tends to wander when doing repetitive things and
I can make the biggest mess of indecipherable mislabeling mistakes you
can imagine!  To minimize errors (rather to make it possible to fix
errors that I make!), I use a lot of redundancy in taking notes, making
labels, etc.  It's nearly impossible to spot, much less figure out how
to fix, numbering errors, but misspellings, miswording etc are usually
fairly easy.

For example, when I was making crosses this year, the first batch of
crosses using SEAKIST got labeled SEA QUEST.  Easy to fix that mistake.
If it were labeled 17-sq-o2 9, or A-12, there are just too many possible
alternate interpretations.  Was it supposed to be 18-sq-o2 9, or
14-5p-02 7 (very messy handwriting).

Redundancy includes writing down the full name of each cross in my
notebook, on the tag, on the pollen compartment, on any other labels,
cards, paper towels in use.  That way, when I forget to write it down
one place, hopefully, I will have remembered somewhere else.  Nuisance,
for sure, but it works fairly well.  Only completely lost track of about
two crosses this year.

I used to have an excellent memory, but now that isn't working as well,
and I need even more redundancy!  Maybe I'll start taking a tape
recorder out with me to hybridize.

--
Linda Mann east Tennessee USA zone 7/8

Tennessee Whooping Crane Walkathon:
<http://www.whoopingcranesovertn.org>
American Iris Society web site <http://www.irises.org>
iris-talk/Mallorn archives: <http://www.hort.net/lists/iris-talk/>
iris-photos/Mallorn archives: <http://www.hort.net/lists/iris-photos/>




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