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.