Here are the comments, which began in the Haemanthus thread......
From Fred (Bulbissime): I'll try to keep some H. albiflos pollen in the fridge for the next year and try to cross it with H. coccineus.
Wait...and see
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From Gerd : When you want to keep pollen from daffodils and snowdrops over a longer period it must be stored in a freezer (Gefrierschrank) instead in a fridge.
Is there another method recommended for (sub) tropical Amaryllidaceae ?
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From Hans: Sorry but I have no experience with storing pollen of Amaryllidaceae -I have never tried it .
My experience is only for storing pollen of Cacti -this works fine .
I made the pollen on a Q -tip - than in a box for dia films and put it in our fridge ( Kühlschrank ) - the important point of my experience is that the pollen must gain room temperature before using it -if it is too cool it does not work.
I have produced many seeds of Cacti on this way !
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From Fred : Ok Gerd, I'll freeze it
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From Gerd: Sorry if my contribution here looks like I had much experience with storing pollen.
I only repeated what I have read for Galanthus and Narcissus.
So please be careful with freezing pollen of other genera.
Of course the pollen has to be dry before and after storage.
Hans, how long do you keep the cacti pollen in the fridge before you use it?
I would be glad if some forumists with more experience will add their know-how here!
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From Hans:
I have stored the pollen of cacti only for weeks ( for one flowering season ).
(Maybe you should start a own topic with of pollen .....maybe other members looks not under Haemanthus)
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From Paul: Fred,
Why not store your pollen from the Haemanthus coccineus and then put it onto the albiflos in the same season, as well as storing some of the albiflos pollen from this year for the coccineus when it flowers next year. I have stored pollen dry from coccineus in March (southern hemisphere) and used it on albiflos in April the same year. I didn't even refridgerate it, just left it in a plastic bag with the paintbrush I was using to collect it. Doing it this way care must be taken that the pollen is dry of course. I had seed set, but unfortunately lost the seedhead to a bird of something at one point, so I know the pollen was still viable.
I'd still be collecting albiflos pollen this season if you've got it, but also consider trying the cross the opposite way around next year as well. It can't hurt, and you definitely wouldn't need to "long term" store the pollen if you were just taking it from one month to the next.
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From Fred:
You're right Paul !
I'll try both ways
Anyway, I'll have to wait some months to start
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From Tony Willis:
I stored the pollen of dysosma for a couple of months in the fridge ,like Hans, in a film container. I pulled of the complete anthers and stored those. When I finally used it it produced very good seeds. Germination is awaited.
My only thought on the haemanthus is that they are not hardy and I would be concerned as to whether freezing would kill the pollen. The two genus that Gerd mentions are hardy and often subject to frost when in flower
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From Fred: I don't think that frost could kill the pollen...
but I'm not too sure.
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So... over to you : what experience with pollen storage do you have?
