Pollen germination in vitro at low temperature in European and Andean tetraploid potatoes

Abstract

Confined design combined with use of tolerance ratio was used to compare pollen germination capacity at low and high temperature in Andean and European potato material. Four clones of Solanum tuberosum from the European gene pool were compared with four Andean potato clones derived from the breeding program for frost resistance at the International Potato Center (CIP), Lima, Peru. For each clone, the same pollen lot was used throughout each replication. Pollen were germinated at 9 °C and 21 °C. Fortification of media with potato starch and 14 min preincubation at 25 °C were used as variables. The Andean material maintained its germination capacity better than the European material when temperature was decreased. It was possible significantly to distinguish potato clones with low temperature requirement for pollen germination if incubation proceeded germination at 21 °C, but not at 9 °C. Fortification with starch had no significant effect.

Low temperature tolerance of biomass and pollen germination in potato clones of Andean and European origin

“…Significant differences were found in temperature-related pollen germinability (TRPG) between the Andean and European groups, in accordance with the earlier findings (Kristjansdottir, 1990). Furthermore, there were also considerable within-group differences found in the earlier study.…”

“…Prescreening and earlier results (Kristjansdottir, 1989(Kristjansdottir, , 1990 identified differences in temperature-related performance, in terms of biomass productivity and pollen germinability, between genotypes existing in the examined tetraploid gene pool of tuber-bearing Solanum genotypes. Six of these genotypes were chosen to be included in a study comparing their temperaturerelated performance with regard to biomass productivity and pollen germinability.…”

Influence of genotype‐temperature interaction on pollen performance

“…Later work in other species confirmed an overlap in temperature response between the plant and its pollen (Luza et al. , 1987; Kristjansdottir, 1990; Hormaza & Herrero, 1992; Mckee & Richards, 1998) and also a genotype–environment interaction (Pasonen et al. , 2000,2002), but further work is required to elucidate the relationship of the response to temperature of the pollen donor plant and its pollen performance.…”

Pollen‐tube growth rate and seed‐siring success among Betula pendula clones

“…It is possible that pollen germination ability (that is, competitive ability) is dependent on prevailing environmental conditions during pollen development (Young & Stanton, 1990 ;Delph et al, 1997) or during pollen germination (Zamir et al, 1981 ;Luza et al, 1987 ;Polito et al, 1988 ;Kristjansdottir, 1990). If this is so, male-male competition might be occurring, but no net evolutionary change will result if the effect is due entirely to environmental variation (Snow & Mazer, 1988).…”