Since there are questions being asked in another thread about pollen and to keep that one from getting way off topic I thought I'd start this one. Anyone with tips, suggestions, or ways that you save pollen please chime in

Mona wrote........


I have questions, I've had a long day, so forgive me please????

1. How long can pollen that was frozen, be left outside before it must be used or returned to the freezer and it will be good?

2. If I harvest the anthers very early in the morning, before any dry pollen is showing, will it still have viable pollen after it is allowed to dry?? I had no idea that when a bloom doesn't have dry pollen that it would dry off the plant.

3. After removing the vial from the freezer, I need to allow the vial to warm before opening it???

4.could I hold the vial in my hand to warm it? Or if I carry the still closed cold vial outside, will it not sweat?(example; I get out 25 vials to use that morning, do I open them inside after waiting how long? Can I carry the group of vials outside in whatever, closed or open, imediately or wait how long?

5. Once I've used a dixie cup to let the pollen dry in, do you wash the cup, or just blow it out or wipe it out, before reusing?

I'm sure I'll think of more questions latter on.

Thanks so much to all. If anyone has other suggestions, please, put them out here. We love suggestions and ideas of any and all kinds. It's like I told my d-n-l with her first child " listen to everyone, think about the advise, throw away most, keep what makes sense to you" and you will learn from all of it".

Blessings, Mona

Well Ann Bell is the one to ask this. She sent me pollen during the winter that she had dried and frozen. I am using it now. And I don't know what you mean by "Dry" pollen. Do you mean pollen that is open and fluffy?

I take mine off the plant when it is fluffy and put in those little vials. I leave the lid open over night to dry, then close it the next morning and freeze it. Ann taught me to make several vials of the same pollen and use one til it is gone, then open another one. I was just cramming it all into one or two containers, then if it got bad or not viable anymore, I lost it all. I take it out and let it warm up in the room then go out. I actually put it back in the freezer, but Ann does it differenly. She has these pill containers for the days of the week. She dumps pollen from one container into the pill container and labels them as to what is what. When she gets done pollinating she puts the pill containers into the fridge. She says the pollen will last about a week this way in the fridge. Then she dumps out the old pollen and starts using a fresh batch.

I hope this answers some questions, I am certainly NO expert on this. As soon as I get a lot blooming out there, I always prefer to use fresh pollen that is blooming that day.

Dot

Where do you get those little vials to store the pollen in? Kim

Kim,

There was a seller on the Lilyauction who sold them. He now has his own website. He sells all kinds of hybridizing supplies. Look for microcentrifuge tubes. I also get those green hybridizing hang tags from him and the little plastic bags for seed storage. He also has little storage boxes for the vials.
www.earthstarproducts.com/

Dot

Thanks dot I think I will have to put an order in tommorow. Kim

I will answer in this post

1. This is up for debate. Some say once pollen is thawed it should not be returned to the freezer, but instead placed in the fridge and used within a week. I disagree with this since I have thawed and refrozen pollen sometimes on a daily basis and it remains good. I have pollen from last year that I have used this year and it's good. I have had pollen outside for up to an hour before returning back to the freezer. I take all frozen pollen I plan to use outside at one time so I don't have to keep running in and out. I don't really know what time frame it starts to deteriorate if left outside for a long period of time. Maybe Fred or Lyle will know since both freeze pollen or anyone who may freeze it.

2.YES the pollen will still be viable. The anthers will continue to open even when removed from the filament. I do it that way quite often because I may take just one stamen off and put it in the sun for the anther to open fully and then put the rest in a container to open and dry inside. Now if you put it in the fridge unopened it will remain unopened until it warms up (I have no idea how long it can stay in the fridge that way). Some hybridizers put the whole bloom in the fridge say for the next day and once warmed and the anthers open it's like having a fresh bloom.

3. Yes, let the vial warm before opening it or it can condensate inside and ruin the pollen.

4. Yes you can hold the vial in your hand to warm it if you'd like, I don't see why it wouldn't be ok. The still closed vial may sweat when taken out of the freezer period, it doesn't matter if it's inside or outside, it can sweat. It ONLY sweats on the outside of the vial as long as it is not opened. If you get out 25 vials of pollen at one time you are doing some serious pollenating I would open the vials outside after they have thawed (inside or outside) IMHO. There is no reason you need to open them inside unless you really want to. Just open them as you need them, not all at once. Yes you can carry them outside immediately, but CLOSED since they may not be thawed if you go right outside after taking them from the freezer. The time frame it takes for pollen to thaw varies depending on the temperature it's in. I take mine outside and it's thawed in no time flat; some say 5 mins to 20 mins to thaw, but I seriously doubt it takes 20 min to thaw (maybe 20 min to get to room temp if it's really cool).
I would keep all pollen closed until right when you plan to use it to keep from say another vial falling over or you dropping it and that pollen getting into the other vials. Or any other possible thing that could get into the pollen with them being open or knocking them over and spilling it all.

5. I DO NOT reuse the dixie cups. They are cheap enough for me not to plus mine are not the washable kind. Now if you buy the plastic ones you could wash them if you want to (it would save $$$ if you plan on collecting a lot of pollen every day) I don't collect pollen every day because I ended up with wayyyyyy too many vials of the same pollen last year. I collect enough to have in case I don't have a fresh bloom open. If you only blow it out or wipe it out there is still going to be pollen in it that you don't see and that will get mixed in with the next pollen you collect (and it may n ot be the same pollen as before)
I do wash the vials out with one of those little brushes they make to clean the small opening in the hummingbird feeders.

Hope this isn't too confusing. I learned about collecting the pollen by googling it ( and there are so many ways to do it) and them Fred showed me how he did it with the vials. James uses the matchboxes and puts some in the fridge and some in the freezer.

I forgot to say that I dry mine in the open vials overnight, BUT I lay them under the lamp on top of my computer table out of reach for the cats to play with. The lamp stays on a lot. I also have a fan going all the time right beside the computer table. So there is circulating air to dry them in the vials. In the morning I close them and freeze. It's just too too much work to transfer them from one place to another.

If I only have a couple or very few vials to use I will put them in my pocket, my apron or hold them in my hand until they thaw. In the late spring this is only a few minutes. As long as the pollen is nice and dry you can refreeze it. I one time had Grace Stamile tell me about a little lady friend of hers who took her pollen out of the freezer each day then refroze it. I said, she takes it out every day then refreezes it? She said yes and laughed. The method she and Pat used was putting fresh flowers in the fridge over night then using them in the morning. They had a special fridge just for the flowers in the greenhouse.

Dot

Dot, I think that's what she means, anthers that are fully opened and pollen fluffy.

By the way Mona, I have used pollen from partially opened anthers that the pollen wasn't what I would call fluffy and the pollen was still good. When I have a lot of daylilies to clean for James I rush through the pollen dabbing sometimes and use it that way.

Also, another tip is you do not have to wait for the sticky stuff (stigmatic fluid) to be on the stigma (tip of the pistil) for you to pollenate. I had to look these words up because I just generally call it the pistil and don't use the other words. Sort of like I don't generally say filament when referring to the stalk of the stamen, I just call it the stamen. And I say sticky stuff
Anyway, a lot of people say to wait until the sticky stuff is there before dabbing pollen on it but not all daylilies will produce the stickyness at the same time. Sometimes it could be a lot later in the day before it's there and other times it there way before any pollen is open. I read that some flowers will do this, not have pollen and sticky stuff going on at the same time, to keep from self pollenating. I usually just go out first thing, unless it cool and the anthers aren't open yet, and pollenate and then pollen will be there when the daylily decides to produce the fluid. Sometimes it doesn't take but then again sometimes it doesn't take even if the fluid is there.

Dot I have tried to dry the anthers in the vial, but had no luck but then again I didn't let them dry overnight under a lamp and with a fan. I can't do that now anyway because I have no place do that without bringing the pollen home every day and then taking it back over to where the daylilies are. I may try that on the extra vials I save, that way I can just leave them in my freezer until I may need them then I can take it back over there.
Once I move closer to the daylilies it will be easier to do things, but right now it's an hour round trip daily to go to the daylilies.

If the anthers are not open on a bloom when you want to use it, maybe it's in the shade or just isn't open yet, you can take the whole bloom (if it's not one you plan to pollenate) and lay it where the sun is and it will open faster. If the bloom isn't open just tear away the petals to expose the stamens. If it's one you plan to pollenate then you can remove just a stamen or two and lay them in the sun. I have seen people take a pocket knife and cut slightly into and around the base of the bloom and them pull it off and it leaves the pistil intake to be pollenated.

I keep thinking of things, SORRY

I said this in the other thread, but I will repeat it.

If you are really unsure of the anther drying thing then you can just swab the pollen onto the end of a Q-tip and place the Q-tip into the vial; cut the stick short enough to fit in the vial but long enought to be right at the opening of the vial. You can put it cotton side up and that way you just open the vial and dab the pollen. You can also put it stick side up and then pull it out with forceps and hold it with the forceps while pollenating. The Q-tip will hold lots of pollen.
To make it easier you may need to put another Q-tip behind the anther when swabbing or it may fall off while doing it. Or you can hold the anther with tweezers while do it.

So many ways to do it.

That's where I get my vials also, Earthstarproducts

FANTASTIC INFORMATION!! I know most of this stuff, but I'm always in for a refresher course. After I totally ruined my seed season last year. I just needed a refresher course and maybe some new stuff. I think I'm getting way more and I love it. Anytime I can learn, it's a good day.

How did I ruin my season??? I gathered my pollen the first day and dabbed. Every dab set a pod!!!! I did the same thing the second day, except I didn't use all the pollen from the second day, so I kept it. The second day most pods set. The third day rolled around and I had pollen left over from the first & second day, here's the kicker "I did not put my little pollen filled vials in the fridge or the freezer. I just left it in my tote in the vials. by now, a week had rolled around and I had all this great pollen in the vials so I'm using it, (it was dead by the second day and this is about day 10) I started noticing that I had pods, but not many(from day 1&2 I figured out later). Also, it was 100 degrees in the shade and I'm thinking it's the heat causing my problems. I'm still using the dead pollen with some fresh thrown in ocassionally, so I was getting just one or two groups of pods setting daylily. Again, I thought it was the heat and so did most people I talked to. I hadn't mentioned leaving the pollen out all this time. I finally dug out enough info to realize what I had done by the time most of my daylilies had bloomed out and I only had a select few left. I did get about 800 seeds last year. I made more crosses than this, probably 2000. I was sick. Even with the terrible heat in July, I had a good many pods set on some seedlings that were blooming and on Forestlake Ragamuffin that rebloomed. I used it a lot and I've got a pretty good group of seedlings growing from this cross.

So, this is why I was being so thorough about the handling of the pollen. DO NOT LEAVE POLLEN OUT IN THE HEAT FOR MORE THAN A DAY. IT WILL DIE!!!! I might have had better luck if the temps hadn't gone from 65&70 the first two days and then jumped up to 98 the 3rd day and pretty much stayed that way for the rest of the bloom season. But, I'll not chance it this year. I will try some in the fridge for a few days to see how it works, just a few, not all.

Good luck to everyone. I need luck to go with knowledge. Thanks so much Michele and everyone, Mona

How I label the vials is with masking tape. I write really small across the width of a piece of masking tape and then cut the piece of tape from the roll and put it on the side of the vial. I have tried writing with a permanent marker but it can rub off with repeated handling.

Keep in m ind that not all masking tape is the same width just like the new roll I bought is not as wide as the first roll I had so I have to write smaller or length ways. I just assumed it was a standard width. Here is some photos of how I do it

This is the foam I store it in. I don't know what kind it is, it's just what we had lying around. You could use styrofoam, florist foam, or whatever. They do make a storage case at earthstarproducts for the vial but to me it's to hard to label it. It does have alphanumeric coding on the bottom of the case and I don't really want to have to keep turning it upside down to figure out what pollen is where. It's just easier and more visible in the foam.
Now I have just thrown them in a container but then you have to search through all the pollen to see what's what and that is time consuming.

And remember, you DO NOT have to save every bit of pollen there is (Mona hint hint LOL). Just save enough to use if a fresh bloom isn't open then have a second one of those pollens in case the first vial gets ruined somehow. Also, at the end of the season save pollen to freeze over winter so you will have pollen to start the next season off with until you have fresh blooms.

I put a piece of masking tape acroos the foam to write the name of the pollen on so the labeled vial will go back in that spot so I won't have to hunt for where I put it.


I press a hole into the foam with the vial, you can do as may or as little holes as you need.


I label each vial with the name of the pollen. For laong names you will need to abbreviate some. Just make sure you remember what your abbreviations. Since I started using colored paper clips to take the most used pollen with I will also write the color below the name and on the vial as well. I keep this written in a small notebook that goes outside with me so if I'm using fresh pollen I can look and see what the color clip is that I need.


For the pollens I won't use as often (or didn't think I was going to use often) I use the tags like Fred uses. If I start using that pollen more often then I assign it a color

photo by Fred


You can get the colored paper clips at Office Max or some place like that in containers of 600-800 and there are 6-8 colors usually in them. I ordered mine online which was cheaper tthan in the store because of free shipping, online discount, and the cheaper online price. I have one with blue, dark green and light green (will be used as same green), red, pink, purple, yellow,white. Some have black in them and others may have orange and clear. What I do is use the single colors and then I add a clear paper clip to each one when I need more and then you can add say 2 greens together or 2 blues together for more colors. And then if you have a whole lot of pollen choices then you can start adding 2 different colors together. I'm trying not to use every single daylily's pollen this year. Last year I had wayyyy too many. I use most of my daylilies as pod parents and I have other ones I'm using as the pollen. I will have hit or miss crosses that just pop in my head as I see 2 blooms open. I'm trying to keep it as simple as possible (trial and error) and next year I have figured out how to keep it even simpler.

I haven't set a whole lot of pods with frozen pollen, but reading this makes me want to try again this year. I use empty medicine bottles. Got enough of those.

Cynthia, I try not to use frozen pollen if I can help it. I use the pollen from fresh blooms if at all posssible. I have a few pollens I kept from last year that I really wasn't sure if it would take this year and the one has been good. The other hasn't set a pod but it may be the pod parent not being ready or it could be the pollen wasn't good when I saved it. Not all pollen is good even if it looks good. It was just a smidgen I got from a late bloom last year so who knows. And not all pollen is compatible with all daylilies ( so I've read). Momma may not like Papa very much and rejects him

Another hint that works sometimes.........
If a daylily just won't set any pods try self pollenating it to get it going. Also, I've been told if it's a TET then dab some DIP pollen (if available) on it to get it in the mood. I have done both and it seemed to work. I have a pod on a TET from DIP pollen. Now, just so you know, this pod will abort.

For the newbies (I was one last year so I really don't know everything). Don't just set one pod of a single pollen on a daylily. Try to make at least 2 or more pods with that pollen because the TET pods will fool you. It will be the biggest pod you have ever seen and you think it must have at least 30 seeds in it. WRONG.....It may only have one seed in it or may have only 4, but then again it could have 10. I did that last year and some of the crosses I really really wanted had 1 or 2 seeds and it was the only pod I set. Dips on the other hand could have a small pod but have 30 seeds in it. They tend to produce more pods and more seeds in those pods.

I have done the frozen pollen thing, and the stuff just wasted in the freezer! Good intentions though.

What I do better is see the expectations of a new creation while out in the garden working. Newest stuff is usually my pollen.

Here is an example of being over zealous. These plates get put in the fridge for a few days. Stacked.

Before I go out in the morning, I take a pp and label several of the latest and greatest. Go out and get the pollen fairly early and leave the plate inside for pollen to turn fluffy. Have even used the turned off oven after it warmed for 3 minutes, when desperate! The plates go in the freezer for a day or two as well.

Another trick is to take the flower of a today's daylily and put it in the fridge and use it the next day. I take buds and put them in in a glass of water to ripen on a new cultivar when I don't want to expend plant's energy to bring each flower to open. I hardly ever let a new plant bloom too much and only try to set on one flower.

Picture shows plates getting ready to be tossed. Just checking them over in case there is the 'must use today' pollen before out they go!

Yes I have tried with the dip pollen. I also saw a suggestion on here awhile back about flowers that have no stigmatic fluid to take fluid from another very fertile plant and transfer to the stigma of the flower that won't set pods. I tried that last summer and actually did set a couple of pods on an older daylily Boagie, that has never set pods for me. So I know that method can work. I guess some plants don't produce the fluid necessary for pollination. Startle is one that I have not been able to set pods on. I have heard it is nocturnal and to try at night. May try that and see what happens. I love to experiment and see what works best.

Wow, there is always something to learn on here. Thanks everyone for such great explainations. I know it is time consuming to write and post this stuff.

Dot

Fantastic info!!

Michele, I have you know I don't gather all pollen everyday. Some days I'll leave atleast 2 for the bees to have. I share. Of course that means that I've gathered about 100 little vials of pollen in one day. Is this not normal?? I thougth it was normal.

Aint life fun!!!

It's only normal if you plan to have a gazillion different crosses.

I have about 30 different pollen parents right now and some of those pollens only go on 1, maybe 2 pod parents. Sort of like Magical Marrakech, I've only used it on Leprechaun Prince so far (that may change) or Shamrock Dew has only been used on Wonders Never Cease. I just used what was open while waiting for the others to start blooming. There are the ones I use over and over and those will remain my main pollen parents. I'm waiting on a couple more to open up and that will be it as far as pollen parents. But then again if something strikes my fancy that I think will go good together then I will cross it. I'm trying to keep from having a gazillion different crosses like last year