Indian Journal of Plant Genetic Resources

Fruit set, seed set and germination with 9 year cryostored, eggplant (Solanum melongena L.) cv. ‘Arka Kusumakar’ pollen showed no decline compared with fresh pollen, when pollinations were carried out on emasculated flowers of ‘Arka Kusumakar’. Prolonged cryostorage involving the male gamete component obviously, was capable of performing its normal process of fertilization, resulting in fruit and seed set. The average seed number per fruit set with cryostored pollen was higher than (570) that of fresh pollen (423) and germination of seeds set by cryostored pollen was ca. 32 per cent, which was slightly higher than that of fresh pollen (27 per cent) as sample from the seeds obtained. The results clearly indicate the possibility of conserving genes through pollen storage, thereby long-term genetic conservation of characters transmitted through pollen could be successfully accomplished through cryogenic methods.