A civilised manner of collecting pollen

[Paladin]

Hey all.

 

Well, despite the best on intentions, work has kept me really busy and so I've been completely slack about posting my first grow journal.

 

I'm taking a lot of notes and pictures, though, so will do a proper report when I'm done. That's if I don't screw up majorly before then

 

Anyway, this site has been my absolute first point of inspiration, so I will try to share whatever findings I have back here.

 

Starting now.

 

I'm not sure if this is one of those pieces of information that everybody knows or not - but I'm absolutely chuffed with the results I've gotten from this really simple technique of gathering pollen. If nothing else, let it be an amen to the sucess of this traditional technique. Frankly I'm not sure why indoor growers don't seed more bud. It's not something I've seen discussed with the visibility of, say, supercropping - but why not keep yourself in seed as well as in bud. Do most of you guys do this already?

 

 

 

 

Anyway, the way I did it (found on a couple of forums):

 

AIM:

 

To gather some pollen from a good O Haze x Skunk #1 male, and to later selectively pollinate a bud on each of the best female O Haze x Skunk #1 and the best DNA Genetics Pure Afghan.

 

STEPS:

 

1. Don't leave this task too late. The slightest bit of pollen will stuff your grow. Ok, we all know that - but this really is the most important step.

2. Identify your best males at preflower, selecting for whatever you want (because I was taking pollen from the haze only, I selected here for speed and also for the tightest possible internodes).

3. Let them get balls, but be really bloody careful if they share a growspace, or any sort of air contact, with your girls. A good moment to look for is when the balls start drooping over a little but from there on in you're playing russian roulette with the crop.

4. Prepare a glass of water (you can add light nutes but don't have to) to room temperature.

5. Prepare a little transparent take-away container by poking a hole about the width of your stem (at the point where you will cut it) in the bottom. Cut holes in the top to allow for some air circulation, but mostly to prevent any srt of condensation or humidity-dome effect.

6. Snip off the top of your lad at five or six nodes, or whatever will fit in the continer you have. A diagonal cut with a razor or similar is best. Cut up the middle a little if you like. Same deal as clones. Strip off a few sets of leaves. Push the stem through the hole in the container bottom, put the stem in the class of water and put the lid on.

7. Sit it on a windowsill somewhere.

8. Marvel at the ability of males to live as long as they bloody have to to get that pollen out.

 

NB: Of course you can use paper or stuff to collect the pollen. One good idea is a polystyrene or plastic cup. This takeaway container just also looked right to me, and has worked a treat also.

 

FINDINGS:

 

In the end, this worked a treat. I picked the best three males from six at preflower, and then picked the best when they started showing. I snipped as the balls began to drop, and two days later - well, as you can see, Im glad I didn't leave it further.

 

 

 

 

It's so ecxiting to me to see this pollen! This is the first thing harvested from my first ever grow.

 

 

Misc notes:

 

Deciding to grow two strains at the same time for a first grow is probably unwise. They each have different needs. This goes double if one of the strains is a landrace mazar afghanica, and the other is some stretchy ass sativa. Ha!

Serious breeders will rightly point out that finding just the right male to be a dad is the pursuit of a lifetime, and that anything you select as the best of, say, eight plants is too low a sample size. Well, sure. But for a lot of us homegorwers who just want to keep the best seeds from their own best gear and not with an eye to entering the cannabis cup, this works just fine.

 

I might do a post on storing pollen if anyone is interested (I did a lot of research on it and good seed storage practice).

 

EDIT: Oh, I should add that I'm impressed with both these strains. They have thus far resisted me doing my damndest to kill them with idocy, and that says something. The Afghanica in particular threw two lovely phenos.

[MongyMan]

Cool thread Paladin..

 

I might do a post on storing pollen if anyone is interested (I did a lot of research on it and good seed storage practice).

 

That sounds like a great idea too. Alot would find it interesting I think.

 

Peace MongyMan

[mull]

Good work there mate.

[loylty gets u nothing]

yer great go for a storage idea

i oonly use fresh pollen

woulkd love to learn how to keep it safe

take acre

bil

[UncleBully]

Bloody good job m8.

[Paladin]

Hey! OK lads, thanks for the encouragement. I'll knock together a storage post shortly.

 

Now, I do try to do my research as best I can - I just checked and I have 114 pages of notes from this grow already! Ha. Occupational hazard. But that said, I'm new to this - and if there's one thing I've learned studying all this, it's that the internet is chokkers with newbies giving other newbies advice.

 

So please if anyone else has stuff to add, fire away. Don't feel you're hijacking the thread or anything, just share what you know. And by all means, if I say something incorrect or suboptimal, pull me up on it. Don't let me spread the virus of bad information and armchair opinion.

 

[Paladin]

OK, here’s a post about pollen.

 

Skip to the end to read about storage stuff. The rest is just me dumping background info.

 

The important things to note are that:

 

(1) Pollen grains are not designed to live for long. Their life purpose is specific and fleeting, and nature has designed them to live for only a couple of days.

 

(2) The slightest bit of moisture can cause pollen to germinate. Think about the amount of moisture present on one single pistil. That much.

 

1. HOW POLLEN WORKS

 

Pollination kicks off with the release of pollen grains (dehiscence) from male flowers. An amazing amount of pollen is produced from a single cannabis staminate flower (half a million grains or so I believe) and only one individual grain is needed to fertilise each pistil on a female plant. In nature, this works like shooting a massive shotgun into the air and hoping you hit a tiny bird (as opposed to taking aim). Each and every grain of pollen is a living thing, and must be treated accordingly.

 

The flowers of a male plant will release pollen over a few days, each sack opening in a staggered fashion to increase its chances of pollinating a girl. At the point of release into the air, each pollen grain contains a small reproductive cell and a much larger vegetative cell within its tiny sphere.

 

When a pollen grain hits a ripe pistil on a lady cannabis plant, the pollen grain will germinate. Typically, it germinates within 15 to 20 minutes of contact.

 

What happens now is pretty interesting for such a tiny living thing. The vegetative cell now produces a tube, much like the root of a seed. This tube reaches down towards the ovule (ovary) at the base of the pistil. The reproductive cell from the grain travels down this tube, and as it does, it splits into two gametes (sex cells / ‘sperm’). When these gametes hit the ovary, the genetic matter combines and voila – you have a pregnant bud.

 

The plant is pretty sensitive while this delicate little dance is going on. It is crucial that no part of the cycle be interrupted or viable seed will not form. If the pollen is subjected to extremes of temperature, humidity, or moisture, it will fail to germinate, the pollen tube will die prior to fertilization, or the embryo will be unable to develop into a mature seed.

 

But now we’re getting into making seed stuff – which is a bit off topic.

 

Anyway, that explains how delicate and tiny a thing a pollen grain is, and why they are correspondingly harder to store than, say, seeds. These specks are designed to live and die very fast, and are hair-trigger sensitive to the tiniest environmental variations.

 

It can, however, be done.

 

The following is what I understand to be best practice for storage:

 

 

2. STORING POLLEN

 

Of course, it’s best to use fresh pollen right away if you can. A good technique is to grab a q-tip / cotton wool bud, rub it in the pollen, and then rub it on the female pistils you want to seed. Please don't kill a bee and glue it to the end of a match to use as a 'brush'. I've actually seen this seriously recommended! It's completely unnecessary.

 

If you’re not wanting to seed a section of your current grow, then storage is the go. Reports on how long you can viably store pollen vary – but 6 months should be fine, and longer timeframes (3, 4, 5, 6 years have been anecdotally reported) are achievable with the right conditions.

 

To store:

 

1. Bake a small amount of flour (10x your amount of pollen) in the oven on high heat for 20 mins or so. We’re wanting to sterilize it for mould prevention, but also to get every last bit of moisture out of it.

2. Let it cool (in a very dry place) and then mix the flour with your pollen. This helps as a dessicant, to dilute the pollen (which is way more concentrated than it needs to be for hand pollination), and to provide a useful indicator on the plant as to where you have pollinated and where you have not.

3. Place some dessicant into an airtight container. Film canisters can be good. Proper seed vials are even better, and designed for a similar purpose. Grab a bunch on ebay – they’re cheap. Dessicant here can mean some color-coded gel (the type that changes color as it absorbs moisture) or rice. Gel caps are terrific here also as vessels, but are harder to get to breathe properly in the next step.

4. We want to let the pollen dry as much as possible at this point. So, place an open vial (this is what I am going with) in a paper bag with extra dessicant and then pop it in the crisper section of your fridge. Leave it two days or so.

5. You can now seal the containers and put them in the freezer. I am burying the little vials in a larger container full of rice, then taping the top shut. (By the way, the reason we go from fridge to freezer is that if you put any pollen that is still moist directly into the freezer the cells will rupture as the water in them expands during freezing, meaning you killed it).

6. When you go to open these containers again, be aware that you will be re-introducing moist air back into them, and possibly facing problems with condensation, etc. So only remove from the freezer what you intend to use.

 

This info has been collected all over the place. Consider it a mash up of a lot of good people's work – but special props to “Marijuana Botany: An advanced study” by Robert Clarke.

 

Please add to this if you care to.

[jimbojones5678]

That was a good read and a great post.

 

Well done, keep up the good research,

 

Jimbo

[The Hash Nibbler]

Awesome Paladin, got a couple of Male 'candidates' and was wondering how to store it, now I know. Thanks for the great tips.GH72

[Paladin]

GH - you're always so encouraging to everyone. I like your style! Cheers, mate.