Re: corn pollen (was Beginning of end...)
Lon J. Rombough (lonrom@hevanet.com)
Sun, 09 May 1999 20:09:36 -0700
I can't say I'm an expert on it - just passing along what I was told. The
breeder is Dr. Gerald Dunn, UNH. I don't know how serious pollen movement
would be in a large field, with no windbreaks, in open country like Iowa or
the like. Still, since pollen is usually shed in the morning, when air is
normally more quiet, it seems like there wouldn't be a huge amount of
movement. But then I don't know what kind of contamination levels would be
acceptible. In a big field, a hundred pollen grains in the wrong place
might multiply into some serious contamination if seed were being saved and
the contaminated types were inadvertantly selected. Of if only a very small
amount of contaminated grains were needed to throw off tests for BT toxins,
or the like. Seems like it wouldn't be hard to do a fast test (fast meaning
in a few months) by planting a field of something with an innocuous, but
obvious marker such as colored kernals next to a field of non-colored corn.
You could pick the colored ones out the same season and get a pretty
accurate evaluation. With that kind of marker the corn should still be
acceptible for market, so the grower wouldn't be out anything. Anyone out
there want to try it?
-Lon
----------
>From: "E. Ann Clark, Associate Professor" <ACLARK@plant.uoguelph.ca>
>To: sanet-mg@shasta.ces.ncsu.edu
>Subject: Re: corn pollen (was Beginning of end...)
>Date: Sun, May 9, 1999, 8:34 PM
>
>Lon: our corn breeder commented that results on pollen movement from
>research plots are not necessarily relevant to farm-scale movement.
>I believe the distance there is about 1 km. Ann
>ACLARK@plant.uoguelph.ca
>Dr. E. Ann Clark
>Associate Professor
>Crop Science
>University of Guelph
>Guelph, ON N1G 2W1
>Phone: 519-824-4120 Ext. 2508
>FAX: 519 763-8933
>http://www.oac.uoguelph.ca/www/CRSC/faculty/eac.htm
>
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