Storing Pollen

greenjumble

Well-Known Member
I'm going ot harvest pollen for the first time on order to breed more OG Kush seeds. What is a good way to store pollen and how long can I keep it? The og18xskunk male is into it's 19th day of flower and I would like to have it around for the next cycle when I sprout my fem OG18.
Thanks for any help
 

Silky Shagsalot

Well-Known Member
I'm going ot harvest pollen for the first time on order to breed more OG Kush seeds. What is a good way to store pollen and how long can I keep it? The og18xskunk male is into it's 19th day of flower and I would like to have it around for the next cycle when I sprout my fem OG18.
Thanks for any help
make a 50/50 mix with flour and pollen. you can keep that in the freezer for many months. you want to make sure there is not gonna be a problem with moisture. def. an enemy of pollen.... the reason for the flour mix is because you want to increase the mass of the pollen.
 

greenjumble

Well-Known Member
So add flower to double the mass, triple bag it and throw it in the freezer? Does anyone have any good pics of how the pods look before they open or a particular sign to know when they're ready?
 

eyecandi

Well-Known Member
I collect/store pollen from several males in my fridge and I've had successful polination after over a year of storage. I've heard of 18months +. storage and collection quality determines future success. cannabis pollen can easily be destroyed by moisture. it is also unique in that the cannabis pistil will ONLY accept/recogize pollen grains from cannabis. hence the suggestion to use flour as a 'buffer' ... keeps moisture at bay and the plant will pick what it needs to pollinate.

1st- make sure you are in a sterile area away from your girls, pollen travels far and will stick to your clothing - personally, I change clothes. for collection I take a mature plant/branch that is already popping it's pods open, place that into a paper sack and shake vigorously to release as much as possible. use a fine screen to filter the vegatative matter (you want only pollen, nothing else contaminating), and place the pollen into a small manila envelope (very small, like the 2"x4"). that envelope is then placed into a small dark colored glass jar and filled with rice and one desicant pack (I like to use the ones that come in pill/asparin bottles) to remove any moisture. place in fridge or freezer until you need it.

when you need it, remove carefully. use a small paintbrush to paint the branches you want (away from the main girls, so you don't pollinate them), give them a few hours then spray the plant with water to de-activate any remaining pollen before putting her back with the main girls. once done, fresh rice is put in. I also renew the rice every 4-6months just in case.

my 2 cents
 

greenjumble

Well-Known Member
That sound like a nice way to manage storage. I was able to get a some and pit it away in several zips in the freezer after adding equal amount of flower. We'll how it turns out.
 

a dog named chico

Well-Known Member
Pollen can be stored in black film canisters in the freezer for up to 18 months after that it's probably not viable. From what i have read 6 months is max for most breeders
 

StuffinPuffers

Active Member
i sorta asked this question in another thread....how long without the special treatment??...shake it into a bag, mail it/coffetable, fridge....

so freeze, with fine sifting veg matter out, adding some rice and "do not eat this" packet, lasts longest, 18 months, give or take?...where do you get fine sifter, btw?
 

eyecandi

Well-Known Member
'fine sifter' can be any screen you have handy (heck, a piece of window screen doubled/tripled up works ok), the idea is to remove as much 'other matter' as possible, but it's near impossible to get rid of it all, so don't sweat it too much as long as the other things are in place.

and yes, just shake the open branch and sacks to release a flurry of pollen into your container or to open pollinate.

pollen chucking is really easy. but please do yourself and others a favor ..... do not breed with Fem'ed moms. fem moms that produce seed, will produce seed that carries hermie tendencies at a higher rate then normal. pass those around and no one is happy. use solid strains to breed with only.

my 24 cents :)
 

StuffinPuffers

Active Member
pollen chucking is really easy. but please do yourself and others a favor ..... do not breed with Fem'ed moms. fem moms that produce seed, will produce seed that carries hermie tendencies at a higher rate then normal. pass those around and no one is happy. use solid strains to breed with only.
:)
i have a question about this in the feminized breeding thread...know enuf to answer there? (as its lookin like its overlooked ATM)
 

greenjumble

Well-Known Member
what kind of cross are you brewing up? I recently took a few seeds off of a White Russian that got pollinated by my OG Kush male by accident. 2 are darker green so hopefully they will produce a female to try.
 

growone

Well-Known Member
what kind of cross are you brewing up? I recently took a few seeds off of a White Russian that got pollinated by my OG Kush male by accident. 2 are darker green so hopefully they will produce a female to try.
well, so far i've got cali-o pollen, so cali-o crosses is what i make
seeds are really piling up, can't resist making a cross every grow
the femme is a bit strange - got a brainwreck hermie and hermie seeds
but grew out one, not a trace of hermie at the moment - so what the hell, more seeds don't hurt
 

phear

Active Member
i cant wait to get some pollen stashed away and start making some seed crosses hehe great work guys!
 

Shadeslay

Active Member
Can you just freeze the pods? Just asking because I normally keep mine (unopened) in a container and they tend to open several days to a week later. Curious if they would do the same after being frozen.
 

eyecandi

Well-Known Member
Can you just freeze the pods? Just asking because I normally keep mine (unopened) in a container and they tend to open several days to a week later. Curious if they would do the same after being frozen.
I don't because there is moisture in the pods, affecting the life/quality of the pollen (and not sure if it could be removed after freezing as well). extra vegatative matter always seems to degrade the samples quicker for me, so I try to keep em clean.
 

Bhang Bhang

Active Member
I collect/store pollen from several males in my fridge and I've had successful polination after over a year of storage. I've heard of 18months +. storage and collection quality determines future success. cannabis pollen can easily be destroyed by moisture. it is also unique in that the cannabis pistil will ONLY accept/recogize pollen grains from cannabis. hence the suggestion to use flour as a 'buffer' ... keeps moisture at bay and the plant will pick what it needs to pollinate.

1st- make sure you are in a sterile area away from your girls, pollen travels far and will stick to your clothing - personally, I change clothes. for collection I take a mature plant/branch that is already popping it's pods open, place that into a paper sack and shake vigorously to release as much as possible. use a fine screen to filter the vegatative matter (you want only pollen, nothing else contaminating), and place the pollen into a small manila envelope (very small, like the 2"x4"). that envelope is then placed into a small dark colored glass jar and filled with rice and one desicant pack (I like to use the ones that come in pill/asparin bottles) to remove any moisture. place in fridge or freezer until you need it.

when you need it, remove carefully. use a small paintbrush to paint the branches you want (away from the main girls, so you don't pollinate them), give them a few hours then spray the plant with water to de-activate any remaining pollen before putting her back with the main girls. once done, fresh rice is put in. I also renew the rice every 4-6months just in case.

my 2 cents
Make sure you dry the plant before you freeze it and you can store the whole plant in the freezer. Eye candy hit it on the nose though. I took a male out of the freezer after 2 and a half yrs it it produced 1000's of beans.Good Luck.
 

tuone

Member
freezer freeze dries stuff because colder air holds less water, that's why cold ground makes dew. it exits the cold air onto the ground. probably keep it sealed in vial so that water from other stuff in freezer doesnt go near pollen. dessicant or recently heated dry rice will absorb all the moisture in the vial.
 

backboneman

Member
i have a question about this in the feminized breeding thread...know enuf to answer there? (as its lookin like its overlooked ATM)
Feminized pollen is produced using STS method. It is a straight forward procedure. Remember this is causing a female plant to produce male pollen, the resulting pollen has no male genes. If the plants grown from the resulting seeds is stable(that is, they can tolerate stress) thry will not produce herms. I do not recommend trying to cross breed using STS aka silver thiosulfate solution pollen
 

steveo333

Active Member
I have had pollen last over three years how I store it put pollen into test tubes add two small bags of silica gel leve 24hrs in fridge so silica gel removes all moisture then freeze when collecting pollen I do this in the nude then straight to shower if you dont change clothing and shower you can carry pollen to you main plants water kills pollen
 
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