This is how I now apply pollen:
I made a cloth bag to go over the target branch. It is fairly dense cotton, which may be useful, maybe even important. I wet the bag so that any pollen landing on it will be killed, and since it is fairly tight material, none will get through the cloth alive. The end of the bag has cord sewn to it, and this allows supporting the bag from above. It helps to tie it off to height position before working the bag over the branch. It also helps to trim a few of the larger lower fans to make bag installation easier, and ensure that the bag can be snugly tied around the branch near the bottom.
I apply pollen with a ~12ml syringe with a coarse needle on it. I used to fuss about collecting pollen from flowers, but don't bother any more. I just pluck the male or she-male flowers, put them in a small glass vial in a larger jar with dry silica gel in the bottom. They dry out in the drying jar, and the pollen releases when they open, sometimes with a little help from tweezers. I transfer flowers and all into the syringe by upending the vial into an aluminum foil funnel taped to the syringe barrel while the needle is stuck in a piece of foam to keep the syringe upright. I put in a bit of silica gel as well to keep the pollen in there dead dry after an application of pollen,
To apply pollen, I stick the needle through the end of the bag, and pump the syringe plunger back and forth hard to generate turbulent air in the syringe, and repeatedly eject pollen laden air into the bag. It helps to twist the syringe around and shake it to bang the contents around to get pollen loose in the air. The last time I did this, I was growing in soil pots too big to remove from the 'drobe, and the only seeds produced were on treated branches even when the operation was done immediately next to other plants. I got multiple hundred seeds off every treated branch. This time around, I removed the plant from the drobe, and applied pollen elsewhere.
I leave the bag in place for a half day or so for the pollen to do its thing, then remove the bag. When removing the bag, I mist down the entire plant, especially near the bag, and continue misting while I gently remove the bag. Fans are bad at this point! There will be loose pollen sitting on leaves in there, so the idea is to moisten it all while gently pulling the bag away, and have the rest of the plant moist so any loose stuff that lands on leaves will croak. It seems that the risk of loose pollen is small though, I was not that effective at this the first time around, I think, and still didn't get any unwanted pollenation.
Two risks that bear tracking are, first, don't pull the plunger out of the syringe while applying pollen. Bad mistake that. Second, make sure that the needle goes into the bag, and not out of it again through the side of the bag. Another bad mistake.
Happy seeding peeps.
....and Bud.....
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