Morphological characteristics of pollen of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) clones from seed orchard at the locality Stanovi

Abstract

Scots pine is eurychorous and eurytopic species and as such is characterized by considerable genetic variability. Previous studies abouth this species suggest considerable variability in phenotypic characteristics. On the territory of BiH, Scots pine occurs in a number of locality, and conservation and gene pool utilization are to make use of the progeny tests and seed orchards. Seed orchards established in „Stanovi“ nursery near Doboj 1968th included 20 clones represented 214 ramets. Analysis of genetic differentiation through the analysis of pollen of Scots pine indicate significant differences between clones. The dimension of pollen were studied as one of the parameters of clones variability. Clone 9 has the largest dimension in terms of width of the pollen grains which amounts to 64.10 μm, while clone 2 has the lowest value of 26.44 um. The difference between the widest and narrowest of pollen grains was 37.66 um. The total length of pollen grains varies from 65.48 μm for clone 15 to 40.00 μm for clone 7. The difference between the longest and shortest pollen grains was 25.48 um. Dimensions of pollen grains at the level of seed orchards were 54.42 / 35.61 micrometer. The largest pollen grains with the values above the population average were measured in the clones 9,10,11,13,15 and 20. The differences that were recorded are probably a consequence of the genetic variability of clones of different origin.