Growing Daylilies Together

There are several ways to store pollen.

Once dried for a few hours, pollen can be scraped from the anthers or the tips of the anthers can be stored, pollen intact, in any plastic container such as cleaned film canisters, pill bottles, snack-size zip-lock baggies or even small clear plastic jewelry bags found at your local craft store. There are also small micro fugal plastic tubes that can be purchased online and used for freezing pollen (pollen can be stored for more than 9 years and still be viable. Dr. Robert Carr was experimenting with this prior to his passing away). Be sure to label your container with the name of the cultivar the pollen was taken from, and the date you took the pollen.

Many hybridizers prefer match boxes. There is a chemical in the card board container that prevents matches from getting wet due to high humidity that will work for stored pollen as well. It is advisable to seal the entire match box in a plastic baggie as an added preventative measure.  Another convenience with the match boxes is the pollen parent's name can be written on the side of the box and the boxes stored one on top of each other for easy identification.

_{Updated November 19, 2009}

Comments (1)

Subscribe to this comment's feed

Andy Beech said:

Storing Pollen Here in Newark on Trent in the UK I use weekly pill boxes with clear lids. With four storage compartments to a day and seven days a week I can store up to twenty eight different compartments of pollen per pill box. I number the pill boxes 1,2,3 etc and write up the contents in an A4 sized notepad. I find I can transport the pill boxes around easily in a 'Lock and Lock' container placed in a supermarket bag along with the note pad. I did try using the label on the rear of the pill box but found the constant in and out of the freezer caused the label to lose its stickyness and start to peel away. The pill boxes can be stored in the freezer for use in future years. Sadly my wife, Clair complained I was taking over the freezer space (as we only have a minute combined fridge/freezer not like your american freezers) so to overcome this I purchased a small worktop sized freezer from a second hand store. Now I can store some of the families frozen food as well as the pollen so that keeps Clair happy.

report abuse vote down vote up

November 28, 2010
Votes: +0

Show/hide comment form