sooby said:Or before hand pollination, since an insect could have got there first.
Actually an insect could have gotten to the pollen that the hybridizer collects from a flower to use in pollinating another flower. When insects visit a flower they may contaminate the pollen of that flower with pollen from a different flower that the insect had visited previously.
So to be safe and certain that seeds produced by a hand pollination were from the pollen used by the hybridizer, the entire stamen or anther should be collected before any insect can visit the flower and possibly contaminate the pollen (of the pollen parent to be used in the cross).
