Calling all experts

[Bob in Albany N.Y.]

Hi Guys and Girls. I have a question for you. As many of you know I don't do any breeding but am always willing to share my pollen. I offered some to one of our members, and told (him or her) that I didn't know how the pollen would be as the flower was starting to fade. Well, the mistake was mine, as when I went out to capture the pollen, the flower was pretty dead. I pulled the pollen and it was very dark in color and hard as a rock. Normally when I pull pollen what I believe is the cap (yellow in color and round) comes off and I send the whole thing. I assume the pollen is just the sticky substance that is on the cap. Am I correct? I assume what I pulled off tonight is not viable pollen. That confuses me as I had understood you could store pollen for a year or possible longer. Please teach me and other members.

Thanks
Bob

 

[cnycharles]

I'm certainly not an expert, and especially of paphs, but I think in general if the flower tissue is 'dying' then the pollen and whatever is around it are affected by the dying tissue. If you were to pull off the pollen when it was fresh, you would probably then refrigerate it and it would keep for a long time.

 

[John M]

What cnycharles said. That pollen is useless now.

 

[Bob in Albany N.Y.]

That's what I thought, but just wanted to confirm. I so wanted to be wrong this time. Such is life.

 

[likespaphs]

i used to volunteer at a local orchid joint
the dude found an old, dried flower on the floor and wanted to use the pollen
i said something like, wow, you can't do that, can you?
the dude, as is his nature, said something to the effect of who are you to tell me what i can do?!
don't know if the cross took.

 

[Rick]

Very old pollen still in flowers can get "moldy" and once so is most likely useless.

I have used pollen successfully from flowers in early stage of wilt, so not sure where the line can be drawn. I've also been amazed at the times when nasty, dried out, pollens from long term fridge storage have taken. Sometimes I think the success of pollination has more to do with the overall health and hormonal state of the future pod plant than the quality of the pollen. When I was trying to breed a restrepia, I put fresh pollens into a number of flowers and got empty pods (at first), then the plant started producing empty pods from flowers I never pollinated. At that point I guessed that the plant wouldn't self, got some unrelated pollen, and produced good seed. But I can't be sure if the whole plant just got in the right "mood" or if it really wouldn't self.

John M recently got selfings to take on a Phal that had failed to self on numerous previous attempts.

I've also had a couple Paphs produce seed with no pollination at all (exul and gratrixianum). Maybe all it takes in rare cases is stimulation of the stigma, but there was nothing on those stigmas that I could see.

I know a couple of breeders that have preferred to transport pollen around on cut flowers rather than pulled pollen, but (depending on the species) I have problems even finding the pollen in this mess.

I guess after all this rambling, you would guess there may be no black and white rules, but maybe just ways to increase the odds.

 

[maitaman]

I have posted on the webshot site pictures of how to make a dessication chamber with a plastic jar. You can dry and store orchid seed or pollen for a year or more. You use CaCl (Damp-Rid, a closet dehumidifyer) as a drying agent in supersaturated solution.
http://community.webshots.com/user/maitaman

 

[Ozpaph]

I have posted on the webshot site pictures of how to make a dessication chamber with a plastic jar. You can dry and store orchid seed or pollen for a year or more. You use CaCl (Damp-Rid, a closet dehumidifyer) as a drying agent in supersaturated solution.
http://community.webshots.com/user/maitaman

Very interesting.
I put cattleya pollen in a dry tissue, inside an envelope, into the fridge's butter compartment. Seems to stay viable for hybridising.

 

[Stone]

I put some catt. pollen into a small paper envelope and put that into a small glass vitamin pill jar with a silica gell packet from another vit. container and into the fridge. It was fine 9 months later.

 

[TyroneGenade]

In my adventures storing pollen I have found two methods to work well.

1. Collect the pollen and store it between some tissue paper in a plastic zip-lock bag in the fridge. I think the paper dries the pollen out and prevents mold. The zip-lock bag, I think, prevents condensation. This works well for Catts and the like but has been a bust (mostly) for Paph pollen if the pollen is squashed.

2. I pick the pollen and put it immediately into an eppendorf test tube, snap it closed and put it in the fridge. This is working well for Paph pollen. I think the Paph pollen needs to retain its form to work well. I'm not sure why.