Evaluation of methods to assess the quality of cryopreserved Solanaceae pollen.

Abstract

Solanaceae pollen cryopreservation is a common practice in the hybrid seed production industry worldwide, enabling effective hybridization across geographical and seasonal limitations. As pollination with low quality pollen can result in significant seed yield loss, monitoring the pollen quality has become an important risk management tool. In this study, pollen quality analysis methods were evaluated for their suitability for routine quality control of cryopreserved pollen batches. The assessments, including pollen viability, pollen germinability and pollen vigor analysis, were conducted in two locations on a diverse set of cryopreserved tomato and pepper pollen batches. While the viability obtained by Impedance Flow Cytometry (IFC) can be interpreted as the pollen's potential to germinate, the in vitro germination assay directly quantifies this functionality under given assay conditions. A linear correlation was found between pollen viability obtained by IFC and in vitro germinability. In conclusion, IFC is the most suitable tool for applications and industries requiring a high degree of automation, throughput, repeatability, and reproducibility. In vitro germination assays are suitable for studies within certain temporal and geographic limitations, due to difficulties in standardization. On the other hand, vigor assessments are not sufficiently addressing the needs of the industry due to poor reproducibility and low throughput.

Plant phenotyping relevance

冷凍花粉の品質評価法を比較・検証し、IFCや発芽試験の自動化、再現性、スループットを評価しているため、花粉の生理状態を測定する方法論研究として採用。

Code and data availability

The article blocks contain no public phenotype datasets, image/sensor inputs, author analysis code, models, or supplements with such assets. Pollen samples are proprietary (Enza Zaden, Seed Production Contract); PalDat links are cited prior-work database entries, not this paper's assets; no data availability statement,

No evidence-backed public reproduction asset is currently recorded.