European Journal of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences

CRYOPRESERVATION OF VANILLA POLLEN AND IT’S UTILIZATION IN INTER SPECIFIC HYBRIDIZATION BETWEEN V. PLANIFOLIA AND V. APHYLLA.

Minoo Divakaran, K. Nirmal Babu* and K. V. Peter

ABSTRACT

Vanilla from, Vanilla planifolia which is native to Central America, is an important spice and plays a major role in global economy. Improvement in Vanilla planifolia, is hampered by narrow gene pool in the crop. A few related species occur with useful characters like natural seed set and resistance to fungal diseases. Combining the available gene pool in the genus will help in broadening the genetic base and converging the useful genes into cultivated vanilla from wild species. Interspecific hybridization requires synchronized flowering between the species and or availability of viable pollen. Pollen collected from flowers showed maximum viability (89.4%) on the day of anthesis and that they were 80.1% viable almost 20h prior to anthesis too. Pollen from two asynchronously flowering species of Vanilla viz., cultivated V. planifolia and its wild relative V. aphylla, were cryopreserved after desiccation to % moisture, pretreated with cryoprotectant Dimethyl sulphoxide (5%) and cryopreserved -196ºC in Liquid Nitrogen. This cryopreserved pollen was latter thawed and tested for their viability both in vitro and in vivo. A germination percentage of 82.1% and 75.4% in V. planifolia and V.aphylla pollen respectively were observed indicating their viability. This cryopreserved pollen of V. planifolia was used successfully to pollinate V.aphylla flowers resulting in fruit set. the seeds thus obtaines were sussfully cultured to develop hybrid plantlets. This system is of great importance and can be used for conserving the haploid gene pool of Vanilla in cryobanks and their subsequent utility in crop improvement.

Keywords: Cryopreservation, hybridization, germplasm conservation, pollen, Vanilla aphylla, V.planifolia.