It’s amazing how much less pollen is used when using your finger to transfer the pollen vs using a Q tip.
Nice whorl fingerprint too 
And that is plenty enough for 2 blooms if you are using good seed parents!
Jim Sproul
Jim if that is plenty enough for two. I think I am using way to much! I will have try to use less. I would use that or a slight bit more for one.
Hey I like the fingerprint too…I am comparing it to mine and I cannot seem to find a “whorl” in any of them. LOL You are very lucky.
Anyway…that does not seem like a whole lot of pollen for 2 blooms, I feel like now I wasted in the past so much pollen because I used way more than that for just one bloom. I am so glad to know this Jim, thanks! I’ve used my fingertip in the past but now I use a paint brush, I wash my hands all the time and have very soft water so the pollen seems to melt away fast on my fingertips.
There are hundreds of pollen grains there. I should say too, that I just use fresh pollen for the most part (picked the day before). I make an effort to lightly brush the pollen onto as many of the stigmas as possible with my finger, and will often pollinate 2 or 3 blooms before “reloading”. I only pollinate blooms once and get loads of hips on good seed parents. Remember, the bees only brush a small amount on too. You can’t see any on the stigmas after they have visited a bloom!
Jim Sproul
Jim Very good advice. I will have to change my practices. So if you are trying something on a female parent that is less fertile or with a pollen parent that is less fertile how much do you use compared to what is in the picture?
Comparing finger prints I can not find much either. My hands are so beaten up by my job. I think at times I could lay them on a hot stove and it would take a while to feel the heat. That will be a theory I will leave untested.
Hi!
I am using Q-Tips. Don’t want to get fat, acids, funghi and bacteria onto the stigmata.
But I think now every flower is that sensible, that it does make any difference. Some wild roses are better pollinated by Q-Tip, I think.
Grx!
sorry, wanted to write: “But I think NOT every flower is that sensible, …”
Thanks god not … . 
Adam please leave the hot stove to pots and pans not to your finger and hands…ouch! LOL
I was wondering if anyone knew how long it takes for the pollen grains to actually pregnate a bloom??
Hi Jeanie!
This was a information I also searched for, a few years ago, and mostly I found info on malus and prunus - and some general statements on roses.
For sure it depends on the architecture of the flower you look at, a woodsii fendleri flower means a shorter way to grow through than, lets say, some of the synstylae roses.
Also temperature plays a role.
The info I excerpted out of my readings was a time span of about 3 to 10 days for pollination to first cell divisions of the formed first embryo cell.
I think a mean value should be between 3 and 5 days.
Unfortunately I have not noted from which papers I have derived that infos at last. Perhaps anyone got this info with good sources?
Grx!
Arno
There are some papers suggesting that having more pollen grains on a stigma helps. And it’s probably not just that only a small fraction are fertile. There may be some sort of a “crowd” effect. But it is true that even 20 grains is a pretty small speck.
I’ve concluded we’ll have to do the pollination time test ourselves. I plan to try next summer, but maybe Simon or George can beat me to it. I intend to use Carefree Beauty as the seed parent, because almost every try takes. And I’ll use something for pollen that is available early in the spring, and fertile on C.B., like my C.C. Just do 10 flowers that open in one day. Wash two with a squirt bottle after 3 hours, two after 6, two after 9 and two after 12. Leave the other two to be themselves. If you’re betting that the grains get growing fast, try another series at 2 hr intervals. If you bet it’s slow, do 5-6 hr intervals if you’re willing to get up at night.
Remember that average temps will make a difference, so there will be variations day to day. Also there may be varietal differences, like short stigma vs long in the time to fertilization, but what we care about is germination time. One the grain is anchored firmly, rain won’t wash it off.
Larry I was thinking you would need some good lab equipment like a microscope, but your experiment is beautiful in its simplicity.
Thanks Arno, only 3-5 days?? That is interesting and surprising, I thought it would be less than that, like just hours.