Vanilla

Huh. Up here we can just drive to the grocery store and get vanilla extract.

 

Try doing it before you have your coffee.

 

I've done this too.

 

As I understand it, the folks hired at next-to-nothing wages who do this sort of thing in Mexico and other tropical areas have a particular technique for pollination...they use something like a popsicle stick and gently open up the hinged anther cap...it will remain on the column if you don't yank too hard. They then hold the column with their finger and with the popsicle stick with their thumb, they press the anther cap from the outside and 'squish' it down into the stigmatic surface. This prevents loss of anthers, which could easily get lost in the dirt beneath the vines in the vanilla farm.

good luck with your second pollination

---Prem

 

Very cool that you got it to bloom!! Good luck with the pollination next time.

 

Had some succes with mine this year and read several techniques on the internet. My pompona had 50-70 blooms on it. Try not to pollinate too late in the day. I used a flat plastic tooth pick. I first wet the end with a little saliva. I would manually revove the pollen ball(if it was still there) or scoop pollen out with the tip of the tooth pick after you removed the portion containing the pollen. Take the pollen andthe small amount of salive on teh end of the tooth pick, mix it together on the toothpick and pack in on the toothpick in the form of a paste. Then take this paste and wipe it under the protective flap covering the hole to the ovaries. This was a combination of techniques that I started later in the blooming season that gave me a much higher success rate. Good luck and try to remember this is for fun. It got frustrating sometimes figuring this out.