Ed was kind enough to share his "secret recipe" for sending the frozen pollen, and gave his okay to reprint it here so that everyone can give it a try - it is so easy! But, collecting the pollen would have to start now for anyone who hasn't done it before. No guarantees, surely, but so very well worth a try.
Ed's successful pollen mailing:
"I take the centrifuge tubes, I stuff them with cotton almost to the top of tube, I take the ripe pollen and brush it off on pollen usually takes all 6 anthers to fill the tube.
They get labeled, then go straight to freezer.
I use bubble wrap mailers, but I also wrapped all the tubes in extra bubble wrap placed in a plastic bag.
I sent the pollen while it was still pretty cold here in Wisconsin in March.
Looks like it worked really well"
I'll be trying it this year with other containers, like cotton in baggies, plastic pill or contacts boxes, etc., or whatever I have around, since I don't have the centrifuge tubes. My guess is that other small, hard plastic containers wrapped in bubble wrap would have some similar success, too.
Thanks again, Ed.
