I am prepping to get some pollen from my upcoming LA Confidential plants. This is not happening for a month or so. Trying to get some groundwork and research first.
I have searched OG and Google. I am finding conflicting advice to sift through. What I am gathering is that pollen, especially from Indica varieties, is wet and needs to be dried first. Adding baked flour in a roughly 1:4 ratio will help spread it out as well as drying it.
This flour/pollen mixture should be collected, placed in vials, and then in a thermos in the freezer. Only remove and thaw what is going to be needed for the breeding project.
Flowers that are 2 or 3 weeks old should be fertilized, especially in an Indica variety since they are much faster flowering than Sativas and this will give the seeds time to ripen.
Am I on the right track here? Should the pollen be dried before adding the flour? It is going to be summer still when my fist batch is collected. I am worried it won’t dry fast enough because of the humidity. I have only done this once before (storage) and it failed miserably.
I am planning on using the tiny vials I asked about earlier this week. The plastic ones that many breeders ship seeds in, with caps. Are these moisture-proof enough? Here is a pic:
I typically will empty pollen on to a piece of glass or mirrors…let it dry for an hour or two once shaken from the flour… Remember,
Pollen will be in varying degrees of drying when you collect anyway…then put in tubes
I tend to mix higher than 10:1 flour to pollen as it offers more moisture protection…
The centrifuge tube you showed a picture of will work fine…just make sure to do a few things:
-Store pollen in mutiple centrifuge tubes…for multiples pollenations…once you take pollen out of freezer consider it compromised…like trying to refreeze meat…
-Put centrifuge tubes in a secondary air tight container for added protection.
moisture is enemy when storing pollen.
remember to thaw pollen for 2-3 hour before using…trying to pollenate immediately after removing from freezer can compromise pollen as moisture can condensate on frozen pollen…much like an old beer out of fridge.
Dust pollen on select branches with Qrip or tiny paint brush.
@MrToast I am thankful for your 10:1 advice. Seems there are billions of pollen cells in tiny amounts and that much flour will help to dry it. I was thinking of separating pollen in small bags of vials in the thermos to quickly be able to see the strains when opening. Also, since I live in a hateful tundra in the winter, I will probably just grab the thermos and take it outside when it’s -20…
@ReikoX I wish I had the setup for sealing the bags. I will look into the equipment.
@Papalag and @ReikoX I am heartened by the length you have stored your pollen. I have such a small garden situation I will need it to be able to store for a good amount of time.
Tagging along for long term storage answers. But yes I’ve read you should heat the flour, mostly to remove moisture. So close the foil around it while it’s still warm, then let it cool before adding it to the pollen, but don’t let it sit out open or it will absorb moisture from any humidity in the air.
I’ve also heard of using food grade DE instead of flour, does that need to be heated to dehydrate as well? I’d assume so…
The ratio of flour to pollen, that I haven’t gotten a clear answer on yet either,
I see most say about 4 parts flour to 1 part pollen. I also have another question if someone could help me out.
I just want to pollinate a few lower branches and not the whole plants. After I apply pollen to the lower branches what is the best prevention to keep it from seeding the whole plant?
Would it be ok to cover the pollinated bud sites with clear plastic baggies then spray down the rest of the plants?
I’ve seen from 3:1 all the way to 10:1. Granted only one pollen grain per seed is all that’s needed.
When I do my pollination run, if I don’t just open pollinate, I was going to cover the whole plant in a plastic bag and leave just the target branch out to be worked on, then wrap that before moving to the next branch or uncovering the rest of the plant.
Flower will help it stretch so you can get more vials stored and help disperse the pollen more evenly. But I guess it’s up to you since it’s optional. If you have enough pollen, try both.
need help. I collect “eggs” from my outdoor plant. need to store pollen about 30 - 40 days for mathers. What the easest method? I think to put them on a plate in water.
With the males, collect branches with the flower clusters on them and put them in a vase with water (like they were wild flowers).
Place a piece of paper under them to collect the pollen on.
I mix the pollen with toasted flour (1:5) and store in small paper envelopes. Store in refrigerator until needed.
hey there @zavorotnuck . i’m a new grower myself, so i don’t have a lot of experience, but i’m not sure if the pollen sacs will be likely to open if they’ve been removed from the branch they were growing on.
what i’ve done so far is to cut off a branch with a lot of pollen sacs and put the branch into a cup of water. as the sacs start to open, i will collect the pollen. normally i will put a small mirror underneath the flowering pollen sac and then tap the pollen onto the mirror or cut the sac off and then later collect everything onto the mirror. from the mirror i will scoop it up into a small container (i’ve been using leftover containers of kief that i bought from the dispensary). others will tap the pollen onto a piece of paper where they can scoop it up later.
here’s a picture of my male tops that i’m waiting to collect pollen on.
you can see they’re just sitting in solo cups with some water. i could probably separate them a little more, but for now i am just trying to dial in my early growing techniques.
every day and evening, i will peek in to see if any sacs are open and then i will go in like a little pollen bee and collect away.
