Journal of Oil Palm Research Vol. 29 (3) September 2017, p. 318-322

LEGITIMACY ASSESSMENT OF POLLEN WITH SIMPLE SEQUENCE REPEATS MARKERS

YEN-YEN KWAN*; EZDIAWATI YAHAYA*; NUR ADIBAH ISHAK** and LING-JIUN LEAO**

DOI: https://doi.org/10.21894/jopr.2017.2903.03
ABSTRACT

It is essential that only good quality planting materials are used in oil palm breeding and commercial seed
production. Best parents are usually selected from the best families for commercial production. Stringent
quality measures of seed had already been employed to produce high quality planting materials. However,
pollination with illegitimate pollen still arise in oil palm breeding programme and compromise quality of
planting materials. To date, legitimacy of pollen is traced through data recording. Therefore, illegitimate
pollen due to errors occur during pollen processing may have been overlooked. Concurring genotyping
profiles generated by panel of Simple Sequence Repeats (SSR) markers in leaf and pollen grains of the same
palm, facilitate assessment of pollen legitimacy. Utilisation of this assessment may exclude utilisation of
illegitimate pollen in oil palm breeding programme and improve the quality of breeding procedure.

KEYWORDS:


* Felda Global Ventures Research & Development Sdn Bhd, FGV Innovation Centre, PT 23417 Lengkuk Technology, 71760 Bandar Enstek, Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia. E-mail: speedwell.yen@gmail.com

** Felda Global Venture Research & Development Sdn Bhd, Pusat Penyelidikan Pertanian Tun Razak, 26400 Bandar Jengka, Pahang, Malaysia.