Kuznetsova T.N., Fefelov V.A., Nizhny Novgorod State Agricultural Academy, Russia

Presently both female and male plants of sea buckthorn are involved in breeding. Males must meet certain conditions of habitus, resistance to disease and unfavorable environments. At the same time they must produce much pollen of good quality – with high viability and fertility.

In Nizhny Novgorod State Agricultural Academy we have been carrying investigations of quality of sea buckthorn pollen from males of perspective hybrid families.

Through the investigations it was established that environmental factors of the period of pollen formation have certain effect of morph-physiological features of the pollen. So, in 1997 sea buckthorn formed big pollen – size of pollen grains of 20 investigated males made 30.8-33.1 mcm, and the length of pollen tube when sprouted on the agar medium was 139-253 mcm. In 1998 pollen was less (24.2-28.6 mcm) with shorter tubes.

It was noticed that pollen of processed males quickly loses its fertility. The results obtained indicate that pollen viability is hereditary character and therefore selection of males on qualitative indexes of pollen is expedient and perspective.