Pollination studies in some promising plum cultivars under mid hills of Uttarakhand

Six plum cultivars were studied for their anthesis and pollen germination studies under mid hills of Uttaranchal. The opening of flowers (anthesis) commenced after 8 hrs, reached a peak between 12 hrs and 14 hrs, thereafter, the anthesis declined reaching to a minimum at 18 hrs. In different plum cultivars, anther dehiscence started from 10 hrs and continued up to 16 hrs and the maximum extent of anther dehiscence, i.e. peak time of anther dehiscence, was recorded at 14 hrs. So it can be logically concluded that the best time for collecting pollens was in between 12 to 14 hours of a day as there is a maximum anther dehiscence during this period. All the plum cultivars produced viable pollen with fairly good germination capability; even then most of the plum cultivars are self-unfruitful, indicating that there might be some other factors which are responsible for their unfruitfulness. This needs in depth study to identify the exact mechanism involve in unfruitfulness of the plum cultivars.