Re: Bloom Stalks/pollen storage

In a message dated 4/11/2004 9:13:56 AM Central Daylight Time, donald@eastland.net writes:


I collect pollen and store it in labeled
Dixie cups in the refrigerator.


I do similarly to Donald. I collect the anthers and place them in plastic ampules. I keep them in the frig. I had pollen strikes from iris pollen collected four months ago. I would scrape the pollen from the anthers and store that were I not so lazy. Doin' so would likely give higher strike rates. I sometimes use frozen daylily pollen that is five years old that has been frozen. I do not freeze iris pollen because the freezer is full of daylily pollen I will likely never use.

I too, use small artist's brushes for irises. I sometimes use several with different colored handles when workin' different pollens at the same time. Saves walkin' for the lazy.

Black bristled brushes work best. It's easier to see when a brush runs out of pollen.

Success rates are dismal from pollen removed from the freezer, used, then refrozen. I have attributed this to condensation that occures on the interior walls of the pollen container in my often high humidity enviorenment. Moisture is the enemy of pollen viability.

Someone, somewhere, detailed a method scraping the pollen onto plastic wrap and storing it that way. I've not tried this but would expect it to work well. Sure sounded easy.

Smiles,
Bill Burleson
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