Hi A week or so back there was a discussion about pollen here. We got an interesting posting from Fabio Francisco Suarez complete with photos. Photos are not allowed on this list. I tried hard to get in touch with Fabio offering to put his photos and text on the wiki. I failed. If you're reading this Fabio, please get in touch. I've added the text and pictures to the wiki, temporarily, unless I get permission to retain them, I'll delete them in a weeks time. The page is at: http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/… The original posting in Spanish is below. English is my version. Pbsers who like to make crosses or hybrids need to have a bank of pollen. The enemy is moisture, wet pollen or pollen contaminated with fungus is unusable. To store it, dehydrate with silica gel, for that we use a plastic cup with lid and build a false floor with cardboard, we will make 4 holes with a nail as shown in the photo 1, at the bottom of the cup are approximately 12 spheres of silica gel (photo 2) above the false floor are the stamens with pollen (photo 3) these vessels with pollen (photo 4) are stored in the refrigerator in the bottom, temperature (5-8 °C) (41-46 °F) the silica gel removes the moisture of the environment within the vessel. At 12 days the pollen is dry and can be put in a polyethylene bag with hermetic seal (zip lock) and sent to another country. Photo 6 Miniatum hippeastrum pollen tubes in culture medium for 12 hours 100x magnification. Estimados Pbsers Conservación Polen A los Pbsers que les gusta hacer cruces o híbridos, necesitan tener un banco de polen. El enemigo del polen es la humedad, un polen húmedo se contamina con hongos, o se forma una pasta húmeda inservible. Para conservarlo lo deshidrataremos con gel silica, para eso usaremos un vaso plástico con tapa , pequeño, y le construiremos un falso piso con cartulina, le haremos 4 huecos con un clavo como lo indica la foto #1, en la parte inferior del vaso van aproximadamente 12 esferas de gel silica (foto #2) que se consigue en una tienda de productos químicos, encima del falso piso van los estambres con el polen (Foto #3) ;estos vasos con polen (fotos #4) se guardan en el refrigerador en la parte inferior, temperatura ( 5-8) grados °C (41-46 °F) ; la gel silica le quita la humedad al medio ambiente dentro del vaso. A los 12 dias ese polen esta seco y se puede meter en una bolsa de polietileno con cierre hermético (Zip lock) y enviarlo a otro país, o tenerlos para uno. Shmuel , foto #6, tubos polinicos de hippeastrum johnsoni en medio de cultivo , durante 12 horas, aumento de 100x. David Pilling