Developing a pollen gun for artificial crossing in forest tree breeding

Abstract

A large-scale artificial crossing utilizing a large number of lines is conducted for forest tree breeding. It is essential to efficiently perform all procedures in artificial crossing including bagging, pollen collection, and injection of pollen during flowering in the target tree species. A pollen gun is an instrument utilized for artificial crossing. However, the discontinuation of production by manufacturers has made it difficult to obtain the pollen gun in recent years. Thus, a pollen gun was constructed using commercially available materials in this study. To improve work efficiency, the new pollen gun was constructed using a plastic centrifuge tube for pollen storage that could be directly attached to the gun. It was 0.6–7.7 g heavier than the conventional gun, but the amount of pollen that could be stored was 1.9–2.8 times greater; moreover, the amount of pollen ejected was 1.4–2.7 times more than the conventional gun. The results suggest that this pollen gun is effective for usage in artificial crossing. The newly developed pollen gun is expected to improve work efficiency as it is easy to fill and refill it with pollen.