Assessing the effectiveness of nonwoven fabric pollination tents for improved grass breeding

Abstract

The practices of using isolation and distance in the seed production of open pollinated crops are fundamental concepts to ensure seed purity. We uniquely examined the effectiveness of replacing isolation plots for seed production and grass breeding with different sizes of novel nonwoven synthetic fabric pollination control tents (PCTs). Two fabrics, DWB10 and DWB24, were used along with multiple genotypes of tall fescue at Ardmore, Burneyville and Gene Autry locations in Oklahoma, USA during 2018 and 2019. Treatment effects were consistently significant in both years, but location differences were more pronounced in 2019. Interactions of treatments with locations or genotypes were not predominant. The two tent fabrics, generally, performed equally well for various traits in both years. Tent performance for both fabrics was particularly superior over control for various traits in 2019 (e.g., DWB10 tent showed a 36% increase for seed yield (SY) over the control). Introduction of fans in tents for increasing pollen flow in 2019 was not advantageous as it reduced the SY by 23%. The average temperature within tents was higher with lower average humidity than the control producing a microclimate for good yield and disease free seeds. The final germination (%) of seeds from tents and controls at 21 days was high and not much different with a minimum overall germination of 89% at Burneyville in 2018. There was no evidence of pollen contamination from tetraploid ryegrass pollen in any of the tent fabrics. Bad weather in 2018 affected the sturdiness of tents, but modifications in 2019 corrected all such mishaps. Further improvements in the structures, design and cover have since been made for field exploitation of technology in grass improvement and seed multiplication.

New Nonwoven Fabrics for Pollination Control Bags for Oil Palm

“…According to Bonneau et al (2017), a good PCB should: (i) exclude the oil palm 2 pollinating weevil, Elaeidobius kamerunicus, which is strongly attracted to the scent of the anthesising infloresceces inside bag (Corley and Tinker 2016) so that no contamination occurs from foreign pollen; (ii) be strong enough not to collapse over the inflorescence when wet; and (iii) allow gas exchange without allowing water to accumulate inside the bag which can lead to inflorescence abortion. Recent research in the advancement of PCBs has focused on developing novel nonwoven fabrics with all therefore mentioned properties (Gharaei and Russell 2022), and such PCBs are being increasingly used in breeding of many crops, e.g, Gitz et al (2015) in sorghum, Clifton Brown et al (2018) in sugar beet, wheat, Arabidopsis, and Miscanthus; Vogel et al (2014), Adhikari et al (2015) and Trammell et al (2020) in grasses.…”