Inheritance of defective pollen in F₁ and its effect on the self-fertility in sunflower

Background. A decrease in the seed setting rate during self-pollination of flower heads was observed in sunflower genotypes with low pollen quality, which, in its turn, negatively affected the yield. Therefore, studying the quality of pollen grains, in particular their morphological defectiveness, is important for sunflower hybrid breeding.

Materials and methods. The study was conducted in 2022–2024 at the 2nd Dept. of the Central Experiment Base (Oktyabrsky Farmstead), V.S. Pustovoit All-Russia Research Institute of Oil Crops. The VK195, VK305, KG49 and RIL200 lines, 10 F₁ hybrids, and 23 M₀ plants of the VK101 line were tested. Pollen quality was assessed according to the shape and diameter of pollen grains. Self-fertility was calculated as the ratio of the number of well-filled achenes to the number of tubular flowers in a head.

Results. Crossing lines with contrasting manifestations of pollen defectiveness showed different types of dominance for normal pollen in F₁ in 8 cases out of 10. Intermediate inheritance of the trait was found in two crosses of the pollen-defective KG49 line, used as the maternal form, with the normal VK195 and VK305 lines. A significant difference in the values of reciprocal crosses indicated a maternal effect in the inheritance of high pollen defectiveness in KG49. For VK101 with predominantly normal pollen, wide variability in both pollen defectiveness and self-fertility, with a negative correlation between them, was observed after environmental stress using the TE genesis technology.

Conclusion. The relationship between morphological defectiveness of pollen and self-fertility was analyzed in three significantly different variants: homozygosity of constant lines with contrasting values of traits, heterozygosity of interlinear hybrids, and environmental modification of epigenetic stress in a normal line. All variants demonstrated the same pattern of a decrease in self-fertility with an increase in pollen defectiveness.

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