In vitro pollen embryogenesis inNicotiana tabacumL. and its relation to pollen sterility, sex balance, and floral induction of the pollen donor plants
✍ Scribed by Erwin Heberle-Bors
- Publisher
- Springer-Verlag
- Year
- 1982
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 742 KB
- Volume
- 156
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0032-0935
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Pollen sterility, sex balance, and floral induction of the pollen donor plants were tested for a possible relation to embryogenesis from in vitro cultured tobacco pollen (Nicotiana tabacum L. var. Badischer Burley). The pollen grains destined to become embryos in culture (P-grains) were sterile for the donor plants as judged by their staining reaction with acetocarmine and fluorescin-diacetate, and by an in vitro germination test. They were produced in high frequency in flowers which exhibited a shift in sex balance towards femaleness. Sex balance could be measured by the relative length of pistil to stamens. High P-grain frequency, high pollen sterility, and a shift in sex balance towards femaleness could be induced by raising the donor plants under short days and/or low temperature (18-15 ~ C) as compared to long days at 24 ~ C. Short days and/or low temperature also reinforced floral induction, revealing that the tobacco variety Badischer Burley is a quantitative short day and low temperature plant and that the variety follows the rule that conditions of strong floral induction shift sex balance towards femaleness. At 12 ~ C and short days, contabescent flowers were formed with completely sterile anthers containing a few and mostly collapsed P-grains. Based on these results, it is now possible to predict conditions by which haploids via pollen embryogenesis might be produced in high frequency from low-yielding and recalcitrant species.