In vivo pollination with maize pollen stored in aqueous medium

摘要

A hypertonic aqueous medium can be used to obtain non-bursting, non-germinating maize (zea mays L.) pollen suspensions, which can be stored at 0(sub 0)C preserving pollen viability. This medium could be used in different techniques for maize pollen genetic manipulation, but fertilization ability of such stored pollen has to be proved. In this work, pollen stored in different hypertonic media was used to perform in vivo pollinations by different techniques. Uncut silks and pollen filtered in a paste form were found necessary perequisites for a fruitfull pollen-silk interaction. In the 0.5-1.5 M range a highter sucrose concentration increases storability but decreases fertilization ability. Salts as KNO(sub 3) and CaCl(sub 2) were also explored in an osmotic concentration range. Considering that soluble calcium, needful for germination, can be lost from pollen in aqueous media, a hypertonic aqueous medium osmotically balanced in calcium and sucrose contents was tested as storage medium. Pollen stored several hours in this medium produced numerous seed sets; the high variability of the obtained results made evident the crucial role of silk status in successful pollinations.