Probably a long time if kept in a air tight mason jar in the freezer

Pollen doesn't stay viable at room temperature for long. Agree with the idea of freezing it. Key here is to keep it dry. Gather on a dry day and collect in a vial that can be kept air tight. Include a few grains of dry rice to serve as dessicants. When ready to use, remove from the freezer and allow to thaw at room temperature prior to opening the vial.

Creekweb, Is there any harm about overdrying? Any opinions about pollen storage in small vials with limiting the amount of air, or for example, store it in pure co2?

Typically Nitrogen is used for preservation since it is a inert (non-reactive) gas. How long are you trying to store this for?

I think pawpaw pollen must be very similar to sweet cherry pollen and so hopefully still belongs to his topic. So over the years my problem has been trying to cross sweet cherry pollen to pin cherry (p. pensylvanica) from here in coastal Washington (now post pollen past) to interior Alaska pin cherry, up to 7 weeks later, and has never worked before. Other than native bitter cherry (p. emarginata) which does work on the pin cherry for some reason or that the native cherry blooms much later. (have to save only for 3 weeks) Conversely, Sweet cherry and natural hybrids to bitter cherry are found naturally as X pugetensis.

Hi - any chance I could get some of the pollen from you? We planted 3 paw paws a few years ago and one is doing beautifully and has flowered, while the other 2 are barely surviving. I would love to try and hand pollinate it and see if we get anything.

Thanks for the consideration,

Ian

Ian,

Pawpaw pollen is hard to find. I don't think people would give it out without compensation.

You may want to collect pollen from your own pawpaw and store it as prescribed above. Hopefully, your other pawpaws will pull through and flower next year for you to cross pollinate them.