Effect of the thawing time of castor bean pollen grains stored at different temperatures

Abstract

This paper aimed at evaluating the effect of thawing time of pollen grains of castor bean cultivars undergoing different environmental conditions and storage periods. For this, pollen grains were maintained in four environments: refrigerator (4ºC), freezer (-18ºC), ultrafreezer (-72ºC), and liquid nitrogen (-196ºC) for 60 days. To evaluate viability, in vitro germination was carried out in three tests: 15, 30, and 60 days, in which the pollens grains germinated within an hour were analyzed up to 6h and after 24h. In a completely randomized design, 100 pollen grains were analyzed in the 6 replications of each treatment. For the cultivar IAC 80, both after 15 and 30 days of storage in ultrafreezer, about 50% of pollen grains germinated required from 5h to 6h of incubation for the resumption of metabolism, respectively. For the cultivar AL Guarany 2002, ultrafreezer presented a higher degree of technical uniformity; however, the best germination was achieved through criopreservation. After 60 days, there was a dramatic decrease in the viability under all environmental conditions. Depending on the temperature, there may be a need for a larger thawing time for the resumption of physiological activities.

Keywords

• In vitro germination
• Low temperature
• Pollen conservation
• Pollen tubes
• Ricinus communis