Collecting Pollen For Breeding ~ My Style

[Nico Farmer]

Good thread man !
Nice tips to select male, but if you really want to know how good your males are, feminized them!!!
Big up

 

[MJPassion]

Adding flour to pollen is a mistake, imo.

All it does is add surface area that will collect moisture upon removing from the freezer.

The best example I can think of for not adding flour is the incident where Shanti auctioned off some pollen a few years back. It was mixed w flour & rendered non viable to the purchaser.

 

[Guest]

How would cutting the pollen with DE work; prior to freezing?

 

[Douglas.Curtis]

How would cutting the pollen with DE work; prior to freezing?

The point of the flour and rice grains are to absorb water, especially while defrosting. I know flour works. Combined with the other information in this great thread, I see great things being around years from now.

 

[Guest]

So yes?

 

[Douglas.Curtis]

So yes?

So no. DE is not a very good desiccant, at least not compared to flour.

Flour works quite well, in practice, the key is to cook it, cool it and mix/package in a timely manner. The flour can absorb a lot of moisture and not affect the pollen, when it's properly dried to begin with. Should you have issues with humidity as it's defrosting, I would highly recommend defrosting in a desiccant chamber. I can only imagine the local humidity is quite high in your area.

Pollen is very tiny, the flour acts as a bulking agent, ensuring you're not dumping 800 spores on each pistil. It also washes off quite easily, so the spray down after pollination isn't a hassle.

Lots of upsides to using flour, without having run into any downsides so far. Except having to make sure something stays frozen through moves, natural disasters and the strange things life throws at you occasionally.

 

[Mo. G]

2 thumbs up!

 

[jaybodankly]

I just got some pollination bags. Keep the pollen in the bag.