as the other media showed curled pollen tubes and
bursting. The maximum pollen germination as high as
91.85% was observed when excised young buds (36 h
before anthesis) of Pusa-33 were kept in PGM-G2 for
36 h and then pollen was taken out and germinated. All
the above germination studies were carried out on pollen
obtained at the peak ¯owering stage (September and
March).
On the other hand, in November when plants bear very
few ¯owers the pollen showed above 95% germination
(95.63"3.502) in medium G2. This pollen did not require
any pretreatment of young buds for optimum germina-
tion. Thus there was a distinct seasonal effect of the
source of pollen on pollen germination. This prompted us
to carry out all subsequent studies on the September-
borne ¯owers, i.e. at peak ¯owering stage to mimic the
November effect.