Increasing the transmission rate of the extra chromosome in a trisomic Nicotiana sylvestris line by modifying the means of pollination

Summary Trisomies of primary trisomic line B220 of Nicotiana sylvestris, which contain an extra chromosome shown to be a satellite chromosome, can be readily identified by their larger flower and leaf sizes. In seed-propagated species, the low transmission of the extra chromosome has prevented such plants from becoming agriculturally useful cultivars. In line B220, the transfer of the extra chromosome in 2n×2n+1 crosses was very low (13.5%), although n and n + 1 pollen grains were produced in equal quantities, as was confirmed by anther culture. This was due to the delayed development of n + 1 pollen grains, which are not at full maturity at the time of an thesis. The transfer of the extra chromosome in 2n×2n+1 crosses was increased by a 1 day delay in pollination and also by pollination of small pollen grains selected through nylon meshes. The delayed pollination increased the frequency of trisomics by 9%, whereas pollen selected by using 30 and 25 n nylon meshes induced an extremely high transfer of the extra chromosome, namely 51.9% and 70.4%, respectively. The observed frequencies of trisomics and tetrasomics in artificial selfing of 2n+1 plants with selected small pollen grains were lower than those expected from the data of reciprocal crosses between 2n and 2n+1 plants. This discrepancy seems to indicate a disadvantage of the n+1 pollen in fertilization due to the longer style of the trisomics relative to that of the diploids.