Storage of Bahiagrass Pollen at Different Temperatures

Abstract

Paspalum is an important genus of grasses, and some species are used for forage in the warmer regions of the world. Efforts to develop improved cultivars often require intra‐ and interspecific hybridization, but asynchronous flowering sometimes prevents hybridization between parental species. One method of circumventing this problem is to store pollen using cryopreservation so pollen will be available to pollinate the female parent when it flowers. Bahiagrass (Paspalum notatum Flügge) was used to determine if Paspalum pollen can be preserved using long‐term cold storage. Pollen was dehydrated with LiCl, MgCl2, NaOH, and silica gel for 30, 60, and 120 min. Both dehydrated and nondehydrated pollen were stored at 4, −20, and −196°C for 10, 60, 120, and 180 d. After thawing, pollen stainability and in vivo germination were used to assess viability. Stainability of fresh pollen was 73.3%, and for treated and stored pollen, it ranged from 25.3 to 71.3%. Storage at −20 and −196°C was superior to storage at 4°C. Pollen dehydrated with LiCl for 30 min stored best at −196°C; pollen dehydrated for 120 min with silica gel and for 30 and 60 min with MgCl2 stored best at −20°C. All samples regardless of treatment, storage temperature, or length of storage had viable pollen. These findings demonstrate that bahiagrass pollen can be stored in long‐term cold conditions, and this procedure can be used to circumvent problems associated with asynchronous flowering between parental species used in wide hybridization programs.

Automated monitoring of pollen quality in Douglas fir using digital images: applications for handling and storage

“…Pollen dehydration.-Either saturated MgCl 2 (15 g dissolved in 5 mL of distilled water) (Connor & Towill 1993) or silica gel (Dinato et al 2018) was poured into Petri dishes (90 × 15 mm) in which a smaller petri dish (60 × 15 mm) was introduced as a support for ~10 mg of pollen (pool sample) placed on aluminum trays. The external Petri dish was covered, sealed with Parafilm ® and incubated at 24 °C for 4 hr.…”

How to Become an Apomixis Model: The Multifaceted Case of Paspalum

“…Nevertheless, the possibility of hybridization is restricted because of flowering asynchrony among ecotypes and the sexual tetraploid germplasm. This issue may be overcome by storing the pollen of the apomictic ecotypes [ 133 ] or by creating new sexual tetraploid genotypes with different flowering times [ 70 ]. As a general rule for the genus, a large diversity is observed for agronomic traits as a result of crossing sexual and apomictic genotypes [ 13 ].…”

Endophytic and rhizospheric bacteria associated with Paspalum atratum and its potential for plant growth promotion with different phosphate sources

“…Paspalum accessions from the germplasm bank of Embrapa Pecuaria Sudeste have been evaluated for different uses, such as forage ( Marcón et al, 2018 ) and turf ( Souza et al, 2020 ). The studies developed with Paspalum plants from this GB have included characterization regarding shade stress ( Barro et al, 2012 ), water stress ( De Pezzopane et al, 2017 ), insect tolerance ( Gusmão et al, 2016 ), and cryopreservation for new hybrid production ( Dinato et al, 2018 ). However, studies related to the endophytic and rhizospheric bacterial microbiota diversity associated with this germplasm collection are still scarce.…”