Short of sprouting pollen on agar, I don't have a good formula to check germination, but I do know about checking pollen viability: Use the blue dye Cotton Blue. Put your pollen on a slide in water, add a drop off Cotton Blue (soluble in aqueous media), let it sit a few minutes, add a cover slip and check under the 'scope. The viable pollen will have taken up the dye and be blue, and the nonviable pollen will be colorless. Kathleen