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Halcyon Daze

Cacti pollen, fridge or freezer?

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What's your experience?

Cheers :)

 

 

******UPDATE******

 

Thanks to Auxin for this info, see his reply below:

 

Viability of Pollen of Two Fruit Crop Cacti of the Genus Hylocereus Is Affected by Temperature and Duration of Storage

Abstract:

Hylocereus undatus (Haw.) and H. polyrhizus (Weber) are new fruit crops of the Cactaceae. In Israel, flowers of the two species, which are self-incompatible, are hand cross-pollinated. In order to ensure a current supply of compatible pollen and guarantee good yields, we have developed a procedure for long-term storage of pollen. Pollen for storage was collected in the evening or in the morning. Its moisture content ranged between 45% to 50% in the evening and between 18% to 22% in the morning. Pollen was first dehydrated in a vacuum desiccator until the moisture content was reduced to 5% to 10% and then stored at various temperatures (+4, -18, -70, -196 °C) for 3 or 9 months, after which it was used for cross-pollination. Percent fruit set and fruit fresh weight (FW) were affected by the temperature but not the duration of pollen storage; storage at +4 °C reduced fruit set, fruit FW, and seed number more than did storage at subfreezing temperatures. The FW of fruits produced by frozen pollen was similar to that produced by fresh pollen in commercial orchards. The rate of seed germination was high (≃90%) regardless of the temperature during pollen storage.

 

 

download full-text here

https://journals.ashs.org/hortsci/view/journals/hortsci/35/2/article-p199.xml

 

Edited by Halcyon Daze

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not sure on cacti pollen specifically but i store all my pollen in the freezer

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Experiments done on Hylocereus [Link] found that desiccated pollen freezer stored (-18°C or less) for 9 months was just as viable and vigorous as fresh pollen whereas pollen stored at +4°C degraded in quality.

The full text of that paper is accessible for the graphs and table :)

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Thanks Auxin for the information ;). I am searching something like this long time ago. I would like to share that the last year I polinized a "female plant" (I think it neednt explain what specie...) with polen stored for a full year at -5ºC in silica gel.

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If I'm using it within a month I store in the fridge with dessicant, for longer term, freezer is the go.

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