Pollen limitation and xenia effects in a cultivated mass-flowering tree, Macadamia integrifolia (Proteaceae).

ABSTRACT:

Background and aims

Pollen limitation is most prevalent among bee-pollinated plants, self-incompatible plants and tropical plants. However, we have very little understanding of the extent to which pollen limitation affects fruit set in mass-flowering trees despite tree crops accounting for at least 600 million tons of the 9200 million tons of annual global food production.

Methods

We determined the extent of pollen limitation in a bee-pollinated, partially self-incompatible, subtropical tree by hand cross-pollinating the majority of flowers on mass-flowering macadamia (Macadamia integrifolia) trees that produce about 200 000-400 000 flowers. We measured tree yield and kernel quality and estimated final fruit set. We genotyped individual kernels by MassARRAY to determine leve

SUBMITTER: Trueman SJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8796667 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature