How airborne is Pollen?

[thebaronofsd]

Are we talking EZ Company jumping out of planes by the thousands to smash faces?

My question, I have a 5x5 tent inside a 6x12 room. If I add some sort of HEPA screen to the intake of my 6" inline fan will my bloom area outside of this tent be 'safe'? This tent will always be running negative pressure if that helps.

I imagine pollen could still easily travel on an arm, finger, clothing ,etc and still pollinate a flowering female but that is controllable and falls under 'my own damn fault' category anyway.

Trying to experiment with breeding on a super small scale.

 

[Betterhaff]

Pollen can be sneaky. Being a wind pollinated species the pollen grains are very small (by comparison) and many. Each male flower produces around 35 – 40,000 grains per and they can be viable for weeks. Not sure about the HEPA filter but you are right about possible contamination from going in and out of the tent. Why not set up the tent elsewhere?

 

[Lester Beans]

HEPA filter works fine for catching or containing pollen.

 

[stoned-trout]

blah I pollinate within a few feet of the crops all the time with little/no accidential pollination...except that one time I tripped with the fans on...I am currently pollinating every plants lower buds...like usual I don't expect any issues...yeehaw

 

[thebaronofsd]

to be compliant with state guidelines everything needs to be behind lock and key. This room I'm in now also happens to be in a part of the house nobody goes too so it's a bit of security through obscurity too.

One day I may have the attic as an option but for now all I have is this 6x12 space.

Thanks for the feedback ya'll i think i'll give it a go and learn to save myself a bit of cash on seeds. Now - to learn how to banzai and keep mothers/fathers alive for years!

 

[stoned-trout]

keeping moms alive for years isn't the way to go....I ditch mine after 6 months...yeehaw...its fun messing with them and they get all woody tho...unless you love lots of tiny clones/or only need a few then bonsai is the way ....I like big hardy new growth and after a bit moms clones get smaller and more plentiful...beside all the extra work maintaining her...I just take a shitload of clones and pick a few of the best for next moms...I do keep a serrated breadknife around for root pruning even tho I don't do long term moms ..

 

[ZenFlowers]

Every year my outdoor crop gets mildly pollinated from male plants that are at least 5 miles away. It's amazing how far pollen can travel. I think that female plants have a magnetic pull somehow to attract pollen in the air. I wish human women were so thirsty!

 

[stoned-trout]

I keep malesaround 50 ft from females right now ...got about 12 males in flower now....yeehaw..I tuck them in a corner where there aint any direct breezes...filtered light....

 

[mrS0ul]

I agree growing from seeds is where it's at!

I agree growing from seeds is where it's at!

blah I pollinate within a few feet of the crops all the time with little/no accidential pollination...except that one time I tripped with the fans on...I am currently pollinating every plants lower buds...like usual I don't expect any issues...yeehaw

keeping moms alive for years isn't the way to go....I ditch mine after 6 months...yeehaw..I like big hardy new growth .

I nearly despise cloning. I do clone to keep the choice stuff around for awhile.

I wonder Trout what is your method for doing this on the lower buds?

If I could stop cloning I would do it in a second.

 

[Sam_Skunkman]

Ok but that is not breeding if you are using multiple males with no pollen control. With only one male maybe. You are a seed maker not a breeder with these methods.... Little or no accidental pollination is not acceptable with breeding. If you try and defend such sloppy work it just makes you look worse. Yes I grow mostly from seeds I make, I like seeing new plants, but I also keep my best clones for 25 years.
-SamS

blah I pollinate within a few feet of the crops all the time with little/no accidential pollination...except that one time I tripped with the fans on...I am currently pollinating every plants lower buds...like usual I don't expect any issues...yeehaw

 

[stoned-trout]

but not same clone mom.. you saying same exact mom all them years ??? 25 years an maintaining same exact clone is whack ...I keep males in a filtered light wind free area.. then collect pollen and apply...I don't claim to be a skunkman...yeehaw..apply pollen in wind free area and leave overnight max spray with water and put back in with rest...apply in corner of greenhouse leave a bit ,,spray and return...simple...I aint doing 8 ft and bigger plants for kilos of seed like some sam...!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!..if I was each would have its own place...

 

[stoned-trout]

cloning is simple...disreg uard tray on left .. I tried something new....yeehaw..we all don't work on your level sam...24, 16 oz cups per tray in that setup..i only do open pollination to originally preserve the genetic as a whole unit...

 

[Tonygreen]

 

[Tonygreen]

If yer doin small scale work just flower a male in a moving box with a cfl or something, collect his pollen and profit.

 

[Skip]

How airborne is pollen?

Cannabis pollen from the Rif Mountains in Morocco has been recorded as far north as the Netherlands, and can sometimes inundate Spain.

 

[aridbud]

Yep, it can certainly travel.

 

[moses wellfleet]

OP if you worried about pollen on your clothes, then mist yourself with a spray bottle. Moisture denatures pollen quickly!!

 

[whatsmells]

http://articles.latimes.com/1987-11-25/news/mn-16253_1_marijuana-laws

LA Times

There's Something in the Air--and It's Marijuana
It's the perfect Southern California story.

It's set in the perfect place, on the sixth-floor patio of an office building near the trendy Brentwood intersection of Wilshire Boulevard and Barrington Avenue on Los Angeles' Westside.

There, a one-inch-long glass slide is coated with Vaseline and positioned to attract tiny pieces of weeds, trees, grasses and molds from the air. Then, the folks from the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America analyze the slide in order to explain why we can expect to sneeze more, or less, in the coming weeks.

In its most recent slide analysis, the foundation discovered that 40% of the weed pollens in the air were coming from a single, surprising source

Hemp.

That's right, marijuana.

But before Mike Royko races to his typewriter and begins to pound out another I-told-you-they're-zonked-out-there column, a moment of calm should prevail.

You can still breathe the air on the Westside without fear of feeling bad or, for that matter, good, counsels Scott E. McCreary, executive director of the asthma and allergy group's Los Angeles chapter. Marijuana must be dried and then smoked or eaten for its intoxicating effect to take hold, he noted.

Officials of the organization, which distributes literature about asthma and allergies and awards research grants to study them, admitted Tuesday that they don't know quite what to make of the high levels of marijuana pollen.

"It may be simply a seasonal possibility," said Bonnie Ank, the laboratory technician who analyzes the particle samples and is sure of her numbers, if not their meaning.

This happens to be the time of year when there are few other kinds of weed pollens in the air, Ank said. And since we had a cool summer this year, the marijuana season may be peaking later than usual. Normally, she said, the pollinating season would come earlier, and the marijuana pollen would be much less prevalent among such evils as sage and ragweed.

Second Year of Sampling

This is only the second year that the foundation has been sampling pollen levels. (A second station measures pollen levels in the San Fernando Valley.) Ank said readings taken at this time last year did not reflect high marijuana levels. The first time she encountered a substantial one, she said, was last July, when she found that about 10% of the weed pollens were marijuana.

The high reading is of no help to law enforcement officers who might hope to pinpoint a cultivation site. Pollen can travel 20 to 30 miles from its sources, McCreary said.

Besides, according to both police and advocates of marijuana use, outdoor cultivation in urban areas is minimal.

Bruce Margolin, attorney and coordinator for the Los Angeles office of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, said he, too, is mystified by the finding.

Harvest Should Be Over

"The harvest season usually happens in September or October; it would be over by now," he said. "Maybe they (the monitoring station) should check their next-door neighbor."





And so the questions about the high marijuana finding will persist. And so, too, will the bad jokes. A popular one seems to center on speculation about whether Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg was in the neighborhood.

"People are coming up with great lines," McCreary said. "Our lab technician says she's sneezing, but she doesn't mind."

 

[Sam_Skunkman]

I am not sure the pollen from the Rif is still viable when it arrives in Europe....
-SamS

 

[Skip]

I am not sure the pollen from the Rif is still viable when it arrives in Europe....
-SamS

Well then it would be difficult to convince you of the existence and viability of interstellar pollen, fertilizing the earth...