Hello all!

I am not sure how many of you save pollen in the freezer for later use, but I thought I would share some pics of how I am currently saving my pollen in the freezer for later use. Hopefully some of your will find this useful!

Thanks for looking!
-Cory


Pic 1: Plastic ammo box that holds 100 ammo cartridges up to size 44 magnum. Can be purchased for around $4 at a shooting supplies store.


Pic 2: Inside of ammo box.


Pic 3: 2.0ml centrifuge tube. These are approximately 1 1/2" long by 3/8" in diameter. I think I was able to get 1,000 of these for under $15 on Ebay last year. Labelled with masking tape and sharpie.


Pic 4: Tubes of pollen set for storage in the freezer.


Pic 5: Box of pollen with lid closed. Tubes fit nice and do not fall loose when container is turned upside down.

Cory, do you think painters tape would stay on the tubes? Cause I have a big ole roll of it!

josieskid said:Cory, do you think painters tape would stay on the tubes? Cause I have a big ole roll of it!

Masking tape stays on for me. You could do a text with the painter's tape.. I feel the odds are pretty good as long as the surface is clean and dry. Painter's tape can be finicky from some companies.

I make my own labels by writing the name and date on a post-it note (color coded by year), cutting it to a small rectangular size to fit my writing, and then scotch taping it to the centrifuge tube. I've been doing this for a few years now and the tape holds wonderfully in my freezer. And I get my centrifuge tubes from USA Scientific (#1615-5500).


Please excuse the incredibly blurry shot -- my camera is refusing to focus today... But hopefully this gives you an idea of what it looks like -- if you can get past the blurriness, that is...

I also use the storage boxes that have each slot numbered, and I keep a listing of where everything is by variety. So I don't have anything written on the lids of the tubes. That way when I want a particular pollen I just go to my listing to look whatever I want up to determine its location. And I have quite a few boxes and try to replace the pollens each year. It's ending up being quite a task to record everything, and I usually use very little of my frozen pollen, so as things get more complicated I think my pollen freezing will be the first task I let go. But for now...

Betty, you might have been closer than your camera will focus being the tubes and labels are probably tiny. Try backing away till it will focus.

Thanks Larry!