Re: silica

Andreas Wistuba (A.Wistuba@DKFZ-Heidelberg.DE)
Fri, 21 Jan 1994 17:03:09 GMT+1

Barry, you wrote:

> This is very interesting. I am surprised that the silica gel doesn't
> completely dessicate the pollen to such a degree that the pollen is
> killed...

In fact best to my knowledge a complete drying of the pollen is
exactly what's necessary to conserve them by simply reducing life
(=metabolism) to a minimum. The same might be achieved by storing
pollen in liquid nitrogen (-196C). I think the critical steps are the
procedures drying or freezing are done (fast or slow....).

Andreas