Collecting Pollen for Pollination

Note:

Best to get males in the greenhouse early and finish early.

BB gall midge larva can eat flowers. Make sure to spray rooted cuttings

Pollen in the fridge/freezer can last 1 year.

1. Harvest flowers at stage 5. Corolla is open.

2. Use a tweezers and grab the pedicel and remove the flower.

3. Put collected flowers in a petri dish labeled with the cultivar name. (no cover needed)

4. Put petri dishes in metal cabinet in GH to dry. If pollen in hot cabinet to dry for longer than 4 days not sure the pollen will be viable.

5. When flowers are crispy (dry best when the GH is warm and dry (no rain)) you can extract the pollen crispy on left, freshly picked on rt.

6. Prepare a pollen vial. Use clean vial and cork. Put a sticker on the cork labeled with cultivar and vial number

7. In GH open vial and put crispy flowers between 2 fingers in dominant hand. Grasp the base of the flower/ovary area

8. Roll flower between fingers with opening to flower over the vial.

9. You will see pollen drop down into vial

10. Put cork in vial and store in fridge.

11. If you don’t have a pollen parent bush you can cut branches.

12. Cut branches from bushes in field (12” long at least) with a significant number of stage 3 and 4 blooms. (If too many stage 3 the flowers won’t open and will dry up and fall off). Only do when have to…can’t control when pollinate and it is hard to match the females to this.

13. Place in white bucket (1 gal) with 1 cap of bleach (sometimes also a cap of sprite soda). Change water when necessary, or add water if taken up quickly.

14. Place cuttings in water, remove any open flowers

15. When flowers open harvest as above