Title: POLLEN AND POLLINATION EXPERIMENTS 1. THE CONTRIBUTION OF STRAY POLLEN TO THE SEED SET OF DE PETALLED HAND POLLINATED FLOWERS OF APPLE MALUS
Authors: VISSER T; VERHAEGH J J
Authors affiliation: INST HORTICULTURAL PLANT BREEDING IVT , WAGENINGEN, NETH.
Published in: Euphytica, volumn 29, pages 379-384, (1980).
Abstract: " Using the finger nails to remove most of the petals is a fast method of preparing apple flowers [cultivars Cox’s Orange Pippin, Elstar, Golden Delicious, James Grieve, Melrose and Smoothee] for hand pollination in the balloon stage. Such flowers still appeared quite attractive to insects; left to open pollination, the seed set per flower averaged 2/3 of that of similarly treated, but hand-pollinated flowers. With the aid of marker pollen of scab or mildew resistant donors and the subsequent screening of the seedling progenies for resistance, it was shown that the stray pollen was responsible on average for one of every 3 seeds formed by unbagged depetalled and hand-pollinated flowers."