I enjoyed Jim Sprouls comments on how to get more crosses in less time. I just wanted to weigh in on that by agreeing with the “finger” method of pollenation. While I do not lick my fingers, I do wipe the pollen on my pants from pollen to pollen… Not so much because I don’t wan’t any contamination, but mostly because the sticky liquid on the mothers starts to “gum up” the efficiency of this method. If it’s really sticky, I resort to washing with water and drying with a paper towel. While I never use the shot gun approach of mixing pollen, I am certainly not anal about keeping each cross totally “pure”. I always figure the Big Man upstairs knows more about this than I do anyway, so I just take what he gives me.
Hi Robbie:
I agree - you have to wipe off the sticky substance on your finger from the stigmas, otherwise lots of pollen will be wasted by sticking to your gummed up finger! A little bit of pollen can go a long way.
Jim