Experiment!

[LJA]

Many growers like to experiment with orchid breeding--making crosses with related (or not so related) genera just to see if such crosses take and what might come from them.

Post your pollen collection in this forum, and talk about your experiments in the subforums above this one. Please remember that no trading is allowed on OrchidTalk. If you choose to create a transaction with someone out of the information you find here or elsewhere on the boards, you'll have to do so through your personal email or via some other agency that doesn't involve this website. Thanks.

[Gin]

Question how is pollen stored to use later on ? Gin

[WolfinKW]

I've read posts I think by Sue where he has it in little envelopes inside of a business card binder.

I've tried to interbreed my Phals but I guess I just don't know how to do that kind of thing. I even followed the directions on here but nothing happened. No pregger flowers

Wolf

[LJA]

I keep any that I have in the fridge, stored in wax paper sleeves in a medicine bottle. Our stanhopea is coming into spike, and I'm going to use some of the pollen that PeteMC sent me last year to try and pollinate it.

[Gin]

Thanks for the replys , I might try a couple of Phals. I did try to pollinate my leptotes , got pods , sent them to a friend to flask . he checked them under a microscope ... duds .
I tried flasking once !lol mold ....after that sent them to him to flask , he is gone now . Gin

[bench72]

Definitely something I'm interested in, all this pollinating and breeding and stuff... I've kept the pollen of my Paph insigne var sanderae to hopefully use on a Paph philippinense (preferably the alba). But at this stage I haven't got an alba so it will have to be a normal type hehehe

However, if anyone has either of the species and want to cross them as well... it isn't RHS registered yet so you could get your name stuck to the hybrid grex.

Oh, I've kept the insigne pollen in a vacuum plastic container with those silica gel to keep it dry so hopefully it doesn't go off.

Cheers
Tim

[orchidaddict789]

Don't mean to ask a dumb question, but for how long can pollen be stored so it can still be viable?

[LJA]

Not a dumb question--I've always been told a year, year and a half in the fridge before it starts becoming less and less potent, so I've always gone by that. The pollens of some plants can last for centuries, but I don't think that's the way it is with orchids.

[Manchua]

I have two pollen questions. I remember reading (perhaps here) that if efforts to pollinate an orchid haven't been so good, mashing up the pollinia into a paste and putting THAT into the stigma can sometimes help. Is this true?

Also, if there are two pollen capsules under each anther cap, do you necessarily need to use both or can you use only one?

I pollinated one of my Phals back on 5/28. The flower wilted and the stem started to swell. It swelled pretty quickly in fact, but then after about a month or so, it seemed to stop. I took photographs as it progressed for archive purposes. Now it's a little less than two weeks away from green pod harvesting and it's still only a little thicker than a pencil. I've heard that pods are supposed to swell to the size of a small lemon. I'm nowhere near that size yet. Something tells me that the pollination failed. What do you all think?

The other Phal I pollinated two weeks ago after one failed attempt. It wilted and started to swell too, but then it started to turn yellow and start shriveling. I thought it was on track, but apparently that failed. I have one blossom left to pollinate. I want this one to work.

[LJA]

Manchua, yes, mashing the pollinia into a paste before applying it to stigma works very well, especially with plants that seem to be "stubborn" in terms of getting pollination to take.

Not all the pods you get are going to become the size of small lemons: far from it. As long as swelling has occured, and the plant didn't abandon the capsule, there's still a very good chance that you have viable seed.