Cannabis pollen: how to collect, store and use it?
For the majority of home growers, as well as licensed professional growers, cannabis pollen is generally avoided in order to prevent a seeded crop. But for those wishing to breed or preserve cannabis genetics, pollen from the very best strains is a valuable commodity.
For those who find that keeping mother plants is a costly and time-consuming process, collecting pollen is relatively easy. Our expert guide explains all.
What is cannabis pollen?
Cannabis is a dioecious species, meaning that it has both male and female plants. Pollen is produced by male flowers. These are found on male plants or on hermaphrodite cannabis plants. Cannabis pollen is a very fine creamy white powder with a slightly yellow hue.
In nature cannabis pollen is carried by the wind. Cannabis seeds are formed when cannabis pollen transfers from a male stamen to a female pistil. Pistils are the familiar small white hairs seen protruding from part of the forming buds known as the calyx. If you need a simple explanation of the various cannabis plant parts then our review, below, may help.
Is male pollen the same as hash pollen?
No. Hash is typically made from compressed trichome material produced by mature female plants. Sometimes these cannabis trichomes are incorrectly called ‘pollen’ or hash pollen. Perhaps this mistake arose because finely sieved trichome material can have some superficial similarities to genuine pollen.
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Pros of collection cannabis pollen
However, keeping a mother room take up space, costs money to run and requires your attention and skill to maintain. The other, perhaps easier, option is to preserve cannabis genetics as seeds or cannabis pollen.
Cons of collecting cannabis pollen
Cannabis pollen is extremely effective at its job of pollinating female plants. That’s the main reason why so many home growers and licensed commercial growers do their best to identify and remove any male plants (or male flowers on hermaphrodite plants) as quickly as possible.
If left unattended, a rogue male plant will happily pollinate all the females nearby. This converts much of the precious, potent buds into cannabis seed. The dangers of accidental pollination are perhaps the main reason why so many avoid cannabis pollen at all costs. Most growers prefer to concentrate on producing high quality buds and are happy to leave cannabis seed & pollen production to the seed banks.
How and when to collect cannabis pollen
Male plants start to produce pollen around 2-4 weeks into their ‘bloom’ cycle. The pollen sacs/stamens may look similar to miniature bunches of bananas. They eventually open, releasing the powder-like pollen which disperses easily in a breeze.
Knowing when/how the male flowers ripen and release their pollen is a skill that comes with experience over a few grows. Many breeders will use a paint brush to apply pollen. This can be done with great precision by those who have mastered the art.
How to use cannabis pollen
Often the aim is to use cannabis pollen to fully pollinate a female plant, with the goal of producing cannabis seeds. Sometimes pollen is applied to the entire plant with the aim of filling it with cannabis seeds.
Occasionally some breeders will carefully apply cannabis pollen to e.g. a single branch of a female plant while carefully shielding other branches from exposure to the pollen. Plastic bags are used to protect and enclose areas exposed to pollen. Sometimes a cannabis geneticist may wish to pollinate a single female with pollen from a few different males. This would allow seeds of different hybrids to be collected from different branches.
All drafts, circulation fans and air movement need to stop for precise cannabis pollen application. Some old-school breeders enjoy blowing the pollen onto the female plants, though it should be noted that moisture (from exhaling) will inevitably inactivate some of the pollen.
How to identify male cannabis plant pollen sacs?
Check the nodes where the branches meet the main stem and look for miniature balls. If left to mature these will open. Once open, the pollen is shed from small banana-shaped stamens. The pollen tends to be cream/yellow coloured and will spread easily in the lightest breeze.
If you do see any male plants, they are usually removed and destroyed. Although it’s unusual to see a pure male cannabis plant produced from feminised seed or autoflower seeds it does occasionally happen.
More common are hermaphrodite plants which show both sexes. If rogue male flowers are spotted on a female plant the male flowers are often removed and disposed of immediately in a glass of water, the water inactivates the pollen preventing it from seeding your crop.
How to store cannabis pollen properly
Cannabis pollen is often collected by removing the part of the plant with the male flowers and putting them in a paper bag and allowing them to dry for a few days in a draft-free area. The dry pollen is easily removed by lightly shaking the male flowers. Remember to shake the paper bag too! The pollen is often sifted through a small mesh screen to remove any plant material. The pollen should be stored in a dry, sealed and preferably light-proof container.
Pro Tip: When you need to use some cannabis pollen you may prefer to take a small sample out of your main stash and allow it to defrost for a minute or two before using it, rather than repeatedly defrosting and re-freezing the main cannabis pollen bottle, risking moisture ingress. When carefully looked after, dry/frozen pollen will remain viable for a couple of years. Drying removes the moisture without de-activating the pollen.
It’s important to dry the pollen before freezing since this prevents ice crystals forming in the pollen bottle during freezing. You may have noticed that food items that are frozen are often coated with ice crystals formed from their own frozen, desiccated moisture.
By drying pollen for a few days on the plant before collecting it you remove water, preventing future ice crystals forming in the pollen bottle in the freezer. This is important, since any ice in your pollen bottle ice will melt, spoiling the precious cannabis pollen.
Cannabis pollen from elite plants is often traded between growers. Some growers specialise in pollen production, though you need to ensure that these pollen producers are reputable – many are not.
How long does cannabis pollen last?
Once dried, pollen will last for a few years in the freezer. Keep it cool, dry and dark for maximum longevity. Avoid opening the cannabis pollen container unless necessary. As the pollen begins to reach the end of its useful life you will notice it starts to become more clumpy and not quite as easy to apply as before.
Is it safe to dilute cannabis pollen with finely ground flour?
Some breeders dilute their cannabis pollen, with 1 part pollen to 4 parts flour. The finely ground flour provides a dry, harmless diluting effect. This may be especially useful for the less experienced breeder who hasn’t fully mastered the efficient art of using miserly quantities of cannabis pollen.
Diluting 1-part of cannabis pollen with 4 parts of dry finely ground powder may not appeal to the old-school purist breeder, but for less experienced cannabis breeders it remains an option.
What to do with your fresh stash of pollen?
Many people collect and store pollen for future use. Sometimes it is used within a growing community to allow people to produce their own cannabis seeds from their favourite cannabis genetics. Others sell the pollen to interested buyers, often online.
Producing and collecting cannabis pollen is relatively easy. That said, it tends to be a minority of growers that produce and use it. For most growers, cannabis pollen is avoided like the plague – their only important goal being to produce sinsemilla (non-seeded cannabis buds)
Can you pollinate autoflower strains?
Short bonus tip. As well as using cannabis pollen to produce photoperiod feminised cannabis seeds, it can also be used to make autoflower seeds. In order to do this, you need to take cannabis pollen from a male autoflower plant and dust it on a female autoflower. Often this is done when the female is around 3-4 weeks into bloom.
Note that following pollination, female plants will often show brown pistils emerging from the calyx rather than the more typical white hairs. The best way to harvest the cannabis seeds is to wait until the normal harvest time and dry the plant. This makes it easier to remove/separate the cannabis seeds from the plant material.
What is female cannabis pollen and how was it first made?
In the 1990’s Henk van Dalen, the founder of Dutch Passion announced the creation of cannabis pollen which would produce seeds that only grew into female cannabis plants. The world’s first feminised cannabis seeds had been invented!
This feminised-seed producing pollen became known as female cannabis pollen. Today it is the most common form of cannabis pollen used in cannabis seed production.
Until that point only regular cannabis seeds existed – giving rise to roughly equal numbers of male and females. This was inconvenient, required bigger grow rooms and more energy to run.
Henk’s creation of female cannabis pollen changed cannabis seed production forever and put Dutch Passion firmly on the map. Some growers intially thought that Dutch Passion’s claim of feminised cannabis seeds was a hoax!
How was the first female cannabis pollen created?
Henk van Dalen trained as a Biologist at University and knew how important feminised seeds were in general agriculture. What if feminised cannabis seeds could be produced?
Henk did some experiments, growing cannabis plants from regular seed – the only type available in those days. Rather than harvesting the female plants at the normal time Henk kept them going for a few weeks longer, to see what happened. He noticed that some of the female plants produced male flowers. This was the source of the first female cannabis pollen.
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