In vitro pollen germination of feijoa (Acca sellowiana (Berg) Burret)

The objective of this work was to establish a suitable culture medium and conditions to be used for in vitro germination tests of feijoa pollen. It also had the aim to test the possibility of storage of this pollen in a freezer (-18 °C). The pollen was collected from flowers immediately after anthesis. The test media were the standard (10% sugar, plus 1% agar dissolved in distilled water), and the addition of two H3BO3 (0.65 mM and 1.3 mM) to this medium. Incubation temperatures of 25 and 30 oC were tested. High average percentage of in vitro germination (79.7%) was obtained after three hours of incubation at 25 °C. Highest germination percentages (85.6, 52.3 and 9.3% after storage for zero, 90 and 150 days respectively) were achieved with the addition of 1.3 mM of H3BO3 to the standard medium. Feijoa pollen lost viability after 90 and 150 days in freezer storage, reducing germination percentage from 79.7 to 45.9% and 6.1% respectively.