Pollen shelf life

Coldnasty

Coldnasty

Well-Known Member
How long can you store pollen and it still be viable?Have some genetics I’m trying to keep around but last of the seeds I popped are male and unfortunately no female kept. Secondly what is the best method to store it?
 
mudballs

mudballs

Well-Known Member
over 10yrs if you get lucky. freezer is best method but it needs to be prepared before you just toss it in there and say "see you next year"
 
xtsho

xtsho

Well-Known Member
Coldnasty said:
How long can you store pollen and it still be viable?Have some genetics I’m trying to keep around but last of the seeds I popped are male and unfortunately no female kept. Secondly what is the best method to store it?
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I mix mine with a little cornstarch, put in small plastic tubes with a few desiccant balls and an airtight cap. I then vacuum pack and put in the freezer.

 
xtsho

xtsho

Well-Known Member
Chungayuwoki said:
Way over thought. Just put them in a jar
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Way over thought? Not really if you're trying to keep pollen viable for as long as possible. Moisture is going to be the biggest enemy so ensuring that there is no chance for moisture to get to the pollen is critical. You can use a jar if you want but some of us save pollen from strains we won't be growing again for a long time but still want to use those genetics for various projects. It's prudent that adequate steps are taken to ensure the viability for as long as possible.

It takes a few seconds to vacuum pack and put in the bottom of my chest freezer in a square airtight food storage container. You can stick pollen in a jar in a drawer if you want. I do it my way because it makes it easy to store in little space. I don't want glass jars that might break on the bottom of my freezer.
 
xtsho

xtsho

Well-Known Member
I'm even going to get some 0.5 ml vials so I can split it up and only have to take out a small vial instead of storing it all in a larger one.
 
Coldnasty

Coldnasty

Well-Known Member
xtsho said:
I'm even going to get some 0.5 ml vials so I can split it up and only have to take out a small vial instead of storing it all in a larger one.
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Pretty sure that chungay guy is a troll. Literally every thread they make is bait. Lol
 
xtsho

xtsho

Well-Known Member
Coldnasty said:
Pretty sure that chungay guy is a troll. Literally every thread they make is bait. Lol
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Oh I know. Just in case someone wanted to store pollen long term with the best chance of viability I wanted to give the reasoning for my methodology so they could decide if it was worth the minimal effort or if they just wanted to toss the vials in a jar.
 
xtsho

xtsho

Well-Known Member
Coldnasty said:
I’ll be using your method in the future. Your input was greatly appreciated.
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The only thing I regret is not splitting it up into smaller vials. It would have been a better method as you could just pull out enough pollen for one use and not the entire stash. I will definitely be doing that in the future. I didn't plan ahead as well as I could have. I used the same vials I use for storing seeds which are much larger than needed for this purpose.
 
crimsonecho

crimsonecho

Well-Known Member
can you dry pollen too much? i was thinking of doing something like putting the male flowers in a jar with silica balls, the dessicants, and shaking it so the pollen adheres onto the silica balls then i can use a tweezer to do limited precise pollination of flowers.

and i can just toss the unused silica into an eppendorf tube and put it into freezer for longer storage but i wonder if direct contact with silica is detrimental or not for the pollen itself.
 
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