Mechanism of Male Sterility in a Clone of Orchardgrass (Dactylis glomerata L.)¹

Abstract

Cytological and histological studies were carried out on a male‐sterile clone, OD‐1, of Dactylis glomerata L. The chromosome number and meiotic chromosome behavior of this clone were normal for the species. During microsporogenesis, degeneration of some sporogeneous tissue was observed at the initial stages of meiosis. Later, there was a very rapid degeneration of the tapetum and microspores. At anthesis, there was no evidence of pollen. The cell layers of the anther wall did not develop characterisfically, resulting in a small nondehiscent anther.

Microsporogenesis and anther wall development in male-sterile and fertile lines of pigeon pea (Cajanus cajan (L.) Millsp.)

“…8 and 10). The lack of endothecial development has been associated with male-sterility in other species such as Dactylis MICROSPOROGENESIS IN PIGEON PEA glomerata (FILION & CHRISTIE, 1966), barley (KAUL & SINGH, 1966) and Phaseolus atropurpureus (PRITCHARD & HUTTON, 1972). This characteristic may be a major cause of the brown, shrivelled and non-dehiscent nature of the sterile anthers in the present material.…”

Anther and Pollen Development in Rice (Oryza sativa)

“…A large body of information is also available on the nuclear cytology of the tapetum (D'Amato, 1984, for review). Comparative cytological studies of anther development in fertile and male sterile lines of cereals have shown that tapetal cells of the latter are often abnormal and hypertrophied and disintegrate earlier than tapetal cells of the fertile lines (Chauhan and Singh, 1966;Brooks, Brooks, and Chien, 1966;Joppa, McNeal, and Walsh, 1966;Filion and Christie, 1966;Alam and Sandal, 1967;Narkhede, Phadnis, and Thombre, 1968;Cheng and Huang, 1978;Chengetal., 1979;Greyson, Walden, and Cheng, 1980;Lu and Zhang, 1986). Among Gramineae, endoreduplication is reported to be prevalent in the binucleate tapetal cells of Zea mays anthers (Moss and Heslop-Harrison, 1967).…”

Performance of Hybrids in Orchard Grass

“…When parental lines of superior general combining ability were crossed, the variance due to specific combining ability was the greater. Most of the reported studies on forage crops confirm the conclusions of Sprague and Tatum (1942 (Filion and Christie 1966) and thus, there is the potential of developing hybrids for commercial forage production. (Christie 1973 (Becker 1967 In one of the trials, the hybrid X year interaction was significanl (5% level), but …”