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Abstract

On the cover

A female flower of kiwifruit has approximately 40 pistils, and a male one has approximately 200 stamens. Artificial pollination of kiwifruit is essential for fruit production, but in Japan, most of the pollen is imported. We investigated the effect of the pollination site on seed distribution, fruit size and quality. In order to grow a regular fruit shape, it is necessary to distribute the seeds evenly within the fruit, and if there is any bias in the distribution of the seeds within the fruit, the fruit shape will be deformed. Seeds were distributed in a spreading manner away from pollinated stigma. However, seeds were distributed not only in a particular carpel, but also slightly outside of the carpel. This indicated that the stigma and carpel had a similar one-to-one like connection. These results indicated that it was not necessary to pollinate all stigmas, but only several stigmas, in order to achieve larger fruit size. These are considered to be important guides for targeting the stigmas for artificial pollination.

(Provided by Y. Nakao: Meijo University)