Pollination hang tags for flowers or developing fruits

Pollination studies often require tracking the subsequent development of fruits or seeds from individual flowers receiving specific treatments, especially the single visit of a particular species or sex of bee. Tags lost to sun damage, water or ardent nesting birds diminish your hard-earned sample size. And in the thick of field manipulations, writing and tying on labels is a distraction from activity at the flowers. I developed this hang tag to solve these problems.

I use a Dymo Labelmaker to make the embossed plastic strips before the field season. Being embossed, there is no ink to run or fade. I make a series from 1-100 in each of several colors of plastic strip. These are cut to length, leaving a long tail to receive a small hole (made with an insect point punch, a small cork borer or twist drill bit). By slipping the tag onto a cut plastic paper clip (avoid the cheapest thinnest ones) and sliding it to the arm opposite the cut, it is permanently held. A set of 100 can be accumulated in numerical order on a notebook ring. You can color code both by the paper clip and the Dymo strip.

When attaching to a floral pedicel, simply open the cut with one hand, slide the clip onto the pedicel and let it hang from the apex. Because they are so lightweight and do not tie to the pedicel, I’ve never had these tags harm the plant cuticle. Unlike threads, I’ve never lost track of them in the plant either. Mine have endured for 5-10 field seasons...usually it is the paper clip that becomes brittle first from sun damage.