Morphological and anatomical studies of pollen in peaches

Abstract

Analysis of the morphology and ultrastructure of pollen grains using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) has shown to be an effective method for identifying related genotypes of peach. The micromorphology of pollen grains of 15 peach genotypes using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was studied. The anther colour of the accessions examined differed considerably, varying from red (11 Nos), dark red (Selection-12), creamish white (Sharbati Late), purple (Selection-1) and yellow (Selection-2) in colour. All the accessions and cultivars studied showed tricolporated pollens. Pant Peach-1 had the longest pollen (48.68 μm), and Sharbati Late had the shortest pollens (34.44 μm). The highest pollen width was noticed in IC-360680 (38.64 μm) and minimum in Sharbati Late (24.94 μm). All the peach cultivars displayed striate and tectum perforatum ornamentation regarding the surface features. Striae width ranged between 0.25 μm (Pratap) to 0.55 μm (IC-360680), while the highest groove width was noted in Pant Peach-1 (0.60 μm) and mi nimum in Selection-2 (0.19 μm).