- Title
- Reduced pollination efficiency compromises some physicochemical qualities in gac (Momordica cochinchinensis spreng.) fruit
- Creator
- Tran, Xuan T.; Parks, Sophie E.; Nguyen, Minh H.; Roach, Paul D.
- Relation
- Agronomy Vol. 11, Issue 1, no. 190
- Publisher Link
- http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/agronomy11010190
- Publisher
- MDPI AG
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2021
- Description
- Gac is valued for the nutritious aril surrounding its seed. When pollinators are limited or when flower sex expression is female-biased, hand pollination is necessary. Here, female flowers were hand pollinated with male flowers or pollen stored for up to 84 days at 4 or −20 °C, and fruit set and some qualities of mature fruit were evaluated. Cool storage reduced pollen viability (germinability and pollen tube length) and compromised fruit set (10–87%) compared with fresh pollen (97%). Fruit weight was also reduced at least by 8%, and oil concentration in aril by 40%. However, the lycopene and β-carotene concentrations in aril were largely uncompromised, and some fruits were of a marketable weight (>1.2 kg) and quality. Cool storage is a low-cost method for the short-term storage of Gac pollen. However, methods for drying pollen to an inactive state need investigation for a storage protocol, and for improvements in fruit set and fruit physicochemical qualities using hand pollination.
- Subject
- in vitro test; fatty acids; pollen viability; recalcitrant pollen; orthodox pollen
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1473775
- Identifier
- uon:49102
- Identifier
- ISSN:2073-4395
- Language
- eng
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