Module: | Embryo, Seed, Fruit & Apomixis
Q88: Consider the following statements regarding in vitro pollen culture and micropropagation:
1. The artificial in vitro culture of excised anthers or isolated pollen grains is a premier biotechnological method for producing haploid plants.
2. These resulting haploid plantlets can be chemically treated with colchicine to double their chromosomes, instantly producing homozygous diploid lines.
3. Pollen culture strictly produces triploid plants because the vegetative cell inevitably fuses with the generative cell within the artificial medium.
Which of the above statements is/are correct?
2. These resulting haploid plantlets can be chemically treated with colchicine to double their chromosomes, instantly producing homozygous diploid lines.
3. Pollen culture strictly produces triploid plants because the vegetative cell inevitably fuses with the generative cell within the artificial medium.
Which of the above statements is/are correct?
✅ Correct Answer: A
The correct option is A. Statements 1 and 2 are correct, but Statement 3 is biologically inaccurate.
In agricultural biotechnology, creating a pure, homozygous plant via traditional inbreeding takes many generations and years.
Anther and pollen culture bypasses this.
Structurally, immature pollen grains (microspores) are haploid (n). When placed on a specific nutrient medium in a lab, instead of forming pollen tubes, they undergo repeated mitosis to form a callus, which then differentiates into a full, haploid plantlet.
Causally, breeders then treat these tiny plants with colchicine, a chemical that inhibits spindle fiber formation during mitosis, effectively doubling the chromosomes.
This instantly creates a perfectly homozygous diploid (2n) plant in a single generation.
Statement 3 is a fictional distractor.
The vegetative and generative cells do not fuse in culture.
The entire haploid plant usually derives strictly from the totipotent vegetative cell, while the generative cell degenerates, never producing a triploid entity.
In agricultural biotechnology, creating a pure, homozygous plant via traditional inbreeding takes many generations and years.
Anther and pollen culture bypasses this.
Structurally, immature pollen grains (microspores) are haploid (n). When placed on a specific nutrient medium in a lab, instead of forming pollen tubes, they undergo repeated mitosis to form a callus, which then differentiates into a full, haploid plantlet.
Causally, breeders then treat these tiny plants with colchicine, a chemical that inhibits spindle fiber formation during mitosis, effectively doubling the chromosomes.
This instantly creates a perfectly homozygous diploid (2n) plant in a single generation.
Statement 3 is a fictional distractor.
The vegetative and generative cells do not fuse in culture.
The entire haploid plant usually derives strictly from the totipotent vegetative cell, while the generative cell degenerates, never producing a triploid entity.