I am planning to do pollen viability and germination of tomato plants under heat stress condition. Tradition methods to test pollen viability are time consuming. So, I'm curious if there are any efficient ways to do it. Also, I have large number of flowers and they will flower at the same time. I need to store the flowers so that I can extract pollen later and test them for viability.
Dear Samikshya Bhattarai
I think there is no way for long time storing the complete flowers the more convenient is the extracting the pollen and storing it for later use. The tomato pollens if desiccated enough and kept in 5˚C save its viability for some months. For pollen extraction procedure see: Genetic Improvement of Tomato 1991 editey by G. Kaloo, p. 96. another reference is the Thakur, K. C., M. D. Upadhya, S. N. Bhargava and A. Bhargava 1994. Bulk pollen extraction procedures and the potency of the extracted pollen. Potato Res. 37: 245-248. Although this one is about the potato but due to close relation between these two in my opinion you can follow the same procedur for tomato pollen collection too.
I'm agree with all of above. You need to take resque from anyone th help you.
For testing pollen viability by safranin or other matherial you need to test them with fresh pollen. This is good way. You can storage toamato flowers for shor time.
H kept oline pollens in refrigerator with -75 centigrade degree for a month. But tomato pollens sounds to keep for shorter time than olive pollens.
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