I use fine artists brushes; and since I have bought mine mainly at art supply shops, I've paid rather more for them. I definitely re-use them! I wash them in a little water with some detergent, rinse in plain water, then treat with alcohol before air-drying. You want to kill other pollens and also kill bacteria, fungal spores, and viruses.
I haven't made a scientific study of it, but I'm all for "Better safe than sorry." Jim Shields At 06:59 PM 1/11/2011 -0800, you wrote: >Ellen Hornig wrote >>Ilse's query about hepatica breeding reminded me (because she asked about >>using separate paintbrushes for each plant) that one can buy ridiculous >>#s of cheap watercolor brushes for $1 at the dollar store - say, 20-30 >>per pack. I find these very useful! I've used them for my hepaticas, in >>fact, and after pollinating I just stick the end of the brush into the >>pot to keep it handy for the next round (since the flowers open over >>several days). They can of course be reused for other species, but given >>how cheap they are, it hardly matters. >> > >I seem to remember reading somewhere that brushes used for hand >pollination can be washed in denatured alcohol and then reused. Is this true? > >I'll be sure to stop by the next Dollar Store I see and get some of these >brushes Ellen mentions, because now that my bulbs are living near the city >and enclosed in fairly small mesh to keep out the introduced squirrels, I >think there will be far fewer pollinators helping them set seed. I used to >get great quantities of valuable seed when we were in the country, as >there were many species of pollinators, bees, flies, beetles, and >hummingbirds, that visited the frames. Even in the dead of winter when my >crocuses were the only flowers for miles around, honeybees somehow found them. > >Jane McGary >Portland, Oregon, USA >_______________________________________________ >Alpine-l mailing list >[email protected] >http://mailman.science.uu.nl/mailman/listinfo/alpine-l ************************************************* Jim Shields USDA Zone 5 P.O. Box 92 WWW: http://www.shieldsgardens.com/ Westfield, Indiana 46074, USA Tel. ++1-317-867-3344 _______________________________________________ Alpine-l mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.science.uu.nl/mailman/listinfo/alpine-l
