Use of irradiated pollen technique to recover haploids in bitter gourd

Abstract

Haploids play a crucial role in plant breeding as they contain only one set of chromosomes, facilitating the rapid development of homozygous lines. Parthenogenetic haploids have been successfully produced using the irradiated pollen technique. Embryo rescue facilitates the development of an underdeveloped or lethal embryo into a viable plant. Inbred development through embryo culture has yet to be utilized in bitter gourd (Momordica charantia L.). An investigation was undertaken in a bitter gourd to recover haploids through the 60Co gamma-irradiated pollen technique, and an efficient protocol for embryo culture was standardized. Male flowers of bitter gourd genotype MC-139 irradiated at different gamma-ray doses were used for artificially pollinating female flowers. Intact seeds and excised embryos were cultured in E20A medium supplemented with 0.01 mg l-1 IAA, which was found as the most suitable medium for embryo induction and subsequent culture. The use of intact seeds extracted 15 days after pollinating with 60Co gamma irradiated (90 Gy) pollen resulted in a mutant plant. A significant difference was observed in the size of the guard cell, pollen grain diameter and chloroplast number per guard cell for the plant under T9 (90 Gy) compared to the plants under other treatments. The plant (T9) produced only sterile pollen, and the seed set was not observed when self-pollinated