Viability of eggplant pollen

Abstract

This study aimed to test methodologies to evaluate the pollen viability of eggplant. The pollen germination was tested in vitro, incubating the pollen during 0.5 and 16 hours in different sucrose concentrations (0; 2.5; 5.0; 7.5 and 10.0 g L-1). For the in vivo germination test, the pollen was placed during 4 and 24 hours in the flower stigma and after that stained with aniline blue and evaluated in an ultraviolet light microscope. The viability of the pollen grains was also evaluated in tetrazolium solutions (at the concentrations of 1%; 0.75% and 0.5%) and the staining was evaluated after 24 hours. The highest in vitro pollen germination was 10.8%, showing the necessity for a better calibration of the culture medium. The in vivo pollen germination was 66%, showing that this is an adequate methodology to estimate pollen viability in eggplant. The methodologies involving tetrazolium solution weren't efficient to estimate pollen viability evaluation, because of the deficient pollen staining.