Pollenating Phals
 

Hi! I had a few pollinating questions.

First off, I know how to get the pollen, but should I remove the clear stretchy thing (I sound like such a newbie...) from the two pollen sacks?

Secondly, should only one or both of the sacks go into the receiving flower?

And finally, how can I get the pollen to stay in the stupid flower?

Thanks in advance!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tf8o7heBxAQ

Hopefully this answers your questions. Let me know if that doesn't help!

To remove the pollinia, I pull the pollen and anther cap off of the pollen parent and put it on a sheet of white paper. Then I use my fingers or tweezers, or a knife to gently pull the individual pollinia off of the anther cap and off of that stick white thing.

As far as how many pollinia (pollen sacks) to use, you can use 1 or both. If you want to save pollen for later use or spread pollen over more than one plant, you can use just one.

Once you have your pollinia separated from the anther cap and other appendages I like to lick the end of my toothpick or dip it in the stigmatic cavity of a flower to get it stick, then gently ouch it to the pollinia. The pollinia will stick to the toothpick. Once you've done that, insert the pollinia into the stigmatic cavity of the pod parent and gently rotate the toothpick, the pollinia will stay in the cavity and you can remove the toothpick.

Happy crossing!

.....what Bob said, but I also press the pollinia firmly into and onto the back of the cavity with a tweezers. This seems to help, especially with those 1 or 2 that I have come across where the stigma was not at all sticky.
In fact with a paph I successfully selfed, I literally mashed and spread the pollinia onto the stigma.

Ok, Thank you very much!

---------- Post added at 02:48 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:58 PM ----------

And, I'm done. If things go as planned I'll have four seed pods... :P

One more question, I put the pollen in a flower and accidentally took its pollen out. Will it still bear seeds?

It should. The flower has a better chance of taking a cross if you don't knock the pollen off, but it should take anyways. What crosses did you make?

Two Danne x Crown Stripe, a Phal Sogo Gotris Flora Ark, and a Sogo Vivien.