Pollination biology of Pongamia pinnata (L.) Pierre: a potential biodiesel plant
- PDF / 971,390 Bytes
- 9 Pages / 547.087 x 737.008 pts Page_size
- 108 Downloads / 147 Views
(0123456789().,-volV) ( 01234567 89().,-volV)
SHORT COMMUNICATION
Pollination biology of Pongamia pinnata (L.) Pierre: a potential biodiesel plant Veereshkumar . S. K. Kaushik . K. Rajarajan . K. M. Kumaranag . A. R. Uthappa . K. B. Sridhar . Badre Alam . A. K. Handa
Received: 11 February 2020 / Accepted: 31 August 2020 Ó Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract Pongamia pinnata, is an important biodiesel plant in India. The seed is an economic part of the plant used for extraction of biodiesel. The reproductive biology of P. pinnata is important for determining barriers in setting pods. The study has been carried out at Central Agroforestry Research Institute, Jhansi, India, during 2017–2019. The observations were made on the floral biology and pollinator activity in P. pinnata for 2 years. Anthesis was noticed between 0800 and 1000 h with peak anthesis between 0800 and 0830 h. Flower longevity was only 1 day. Pollen dehiscence occurred 1–2 h before anthesis. Pollen remained viable throughout the day with maximum germination (96.15%) coinciding anthesis time. Whereas, maximum pollen tube length (0.54 ± 0.10) was observed during 1000 h. Stigma remained receptive for 8 h after anthesis, the
maximum receptivity was noticed 2 h after anthesis (82% of pollen germination) and it was coinciding the time where maximum pollen tube length recorded. The style was longer than stamens, indicating that the flower appeared to be adapted for cross-pollination. There were 13 flower visitors recorded, of which Megachile species were more abundant compared to Apis, Xylocopa species and, other flower visitors. The pollinator exclusion experiment was conducted to assess the role of flower visitors on pollination and fruit set. No pod set was noticed in the absence of insect pollinators. Whereas, in an open-pollinated condition, pod set ranged between 15 to 18%. Keywords Floral biology Flower visitors Megachile spp. Pollination Stigma receptivity
Introduction Veereshkumar (&) S. K. Kaushik K. Rajarajan A. R. Uthappa K. B. Sridhar B. Alam A. K. Handa ICAR- Central Agroforestry Research Institute (CAFRI), Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh, India e-mail: [email protected] Present Address: Veereshkumar ICAR-National Bureau of Agricultural Insect Resources (NBAIR), Bengaluru, Karnataka, India K. M. Kumaranag Division of Entomology, Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), New Delhi, India
Ever-increasing demand for fuels has been a challenge for today’s scientific workers and biodiesel seems to be one of the renewable sources of solution for the future (Bobade and Khyade 2012). India’s demand for biodiesel is growing and oil import is expected to rise by 92% by the year 2030 (IEA 2009). Of the several biofuel producing plants, Pongamia pinnata (L.) Pierre has been identified as the potential feedstocks for biodiesel production (Dwivedi et al. 2011). Pongamia is a genus consists of about 150 species, which are distributed in the tropical and subtropical
123
Genet Resour Crop Evol
regions of the world. P. pinnata is oft
Data Loading...
