Screening of a New Chemical Hybridizing Agent in Wheat

To expand varieties of chemical hybridization agent and reduce their cost, We selected 15 varieties of chemical hybridization agent for treating wheat cultivar Xi'nong 1376 at three growth stages with four concentrations to survey the infertile effect, phytotoxicity and pollen abortion mechanism. The results showed that there were significant differences among the chemical hybridization agent treatments. At stages Feekes 7.5 and Feekes 9.5, abnormal vegetative growth or pollens abortion were not obvious. While at the stage of Feekes 8.5, the rate of male sterility of Xinong 1376 was 93.33% in 0.24 kg ha–1 T6 treatment, and the pistil and the plant showed normal development, we also achieved a high seed setting rate via crossing the male sterile plants with normal fertile lines by saturate pollination. Paraffin sections indicated that the degradable process of tapetum cells in the male sterile anther treated by T6-CHA was abnormal. The nucleus of tapetum cells degraded at uninucleate early stage, and then pollen nucleus degraded at uninucleate late stage. Tapetum cells, nucleus of pollen and nutrients were almost disappeared till trinucleate stage. Finally, a little residue of pollen wall left and pollen aborted. Therefore, we hypothesize that the male sterility induced by T6-CHA could be related to the degradation of tapetum cells in anther.