Legitimacy assessment of pollen with simple sequence repeats markers

Abstract

It is essential that only good quality planting materials are used in oil palm breeding and commercial seed production. Best parents are usually selected from the best families for commercial production. Stringent quality measures of seed had already been employed to produce high quality planting materials. However, pollination with illegitimate pollen still arise in oil palm breeding programme and compromise quality of planting materials. To date, legitimacy of pollen is traced through data recording. Therefore, illegitimate pollen due to errors occur during pollen processing may have been overlooked. Concurring genotyping profiles generated by panel of Simple Sequence Repeats (SSR) markers in leaf and pollen grains of the same palm, facilitate assessment of pollen legitimacy. Utilisation of this assessment may exclude utilisation of illegitimate pollen in oil palm breeding programme and improve the quality of breeding procedure.