Fabio Francisco Suarez
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) and 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.
