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Pollen and pollination experiments. IV. ‘Mentor pollen’ and ‘pioneer pollen’ techniques regarding incompatibility and incongruity in apple and pear

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Summary

It was attempted to overcome self-incompatibility in apple and pear and incongruity between these species with the aid of compatible ‘mentor’ or ‘pioneer’ pollen. The mentor pollen was applied in a mixture (1:1) with the incompatible/incongruous pollen and the pioneer pollen was applied one day in advance of the other pollination. Two trials in 1976 with dead methanol-treated mentor pollen on apple were moderately successful, probably because of the hot spring weather. In the apple and pear trials of 1979 neither the methanol-treated nor the viable irradiated (100 krad) mentor or pioneer pollen significantly improved the seed set by self pollen or that after intercrossing. Competition and early embryo abortion after selfing or intercrossing probably contributed to the lack of success of these methods. The viable irradiated pollen induced a rather high ‘parthenocarpic’ fruit set, whether applied on its own or mixed with or in advance of the incompatible pollen; the inviable methanol-treated pollen had no such stimulating influence.

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Visser, T. Pollen and pollination experiments. IV. ‘Mentor pollen’ and ‘pioneer pollen’ techniques regarding incompatibility and incongruity in apple and pear. Euphytica 30, 363–369 (1981). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00033998

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