Pollen Viability

Tom writes:

>>  Do you know if pollen always dies such a violent death, or can it also die
from "natural causes" and appear normal under a magnifier? <<

Well, "never say 'always' or 'never' " !  I would not go so far as to claim that
if it  LOOKS good it will BE good., but using the microscope to check my pollen
has certainly improved my success rate, even  in wide crosses.  It certainly
seems possible that pollen could deteriorate and yet continue to look normal.
I'd love to hear about it if someone has done or will do comparison tests using
fresh vs apparently normal frozen pollen -- but this has been a pragmatic
program, not a rigorously-controlled experiment.

This is an outgrowth of my experiments with the determination of ploidy through
pollen analysis -- which I'll acknowledge is beyond the scope of the current
discussion -- where I learned what good, dry pollen looks like and what pollen
looks like after it has gotten wet and "exploded". 

BTW, I've found that the drying process is even more critical than the storage
conditions, so it also helps to check the quality of the pollen like this BEFORE
it goes into storage.

Sharon McAllister	73372.1745@compuserve.com
Southern New Mexico
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