Prospects in Bioscience: Addressing the Issues

Abstract

Hot pepper is one of the important vegetable crops of Asia, and India is fast developing as hub for its seed production. In hot pepper, seed produc- tion is mainly done using cytoplasmic male sterile lines, where sterile female plants were grown in fi elds of seed growers. The male line is grown in a centralised facility, and only male fl ower buds were distrib- uted to growers for pollen extraction and crossing of female buds. Sometimes it is dif fi cult to supply male fl ower buds to growers because of distance and possibility of crop failure. Further, hot pepper seed pro- duction can be done in 9–10 months in a year in various sowing windows and in different areas. An effort to preserve pollen from these male buds was made under refrigeration and cryo-preservation which can be used to supply pollen directly instead of buds and to longer distances. The pollen from these male lines was harvested and stored at normal room temperature (control), in deep refrigeration (−20 °C) and in liquid nitro- gen (−196 °C). The pollen extracted was preserved in capped vials for refrigeration, and semen straws were used for storing in liquid nitrogen. The semen straws containing pollen are kept in IBP cryo-containers which are normally used for arti fi cial insemination. The pollen had lost viability and failed to produce seeds in female buds within 3 days when stored under room temperature. The pollen stored in deep refrigeration produced seeds up to 6 days. In case of cryo-preservation, the pollen can be stored up to 47 days and produced seeds when used for pollination up to 48 days. The pollen viability was tested using 2% acetocarmine stain