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An experiment was conducted in the field of Indian Institute of Hortricultural Research, Hessaraghatta, Bangalore during August 2006 to June 2008. The experiment consisting of eight treatment combinations were laid out in ‘2x4’ factorial RCBD with 5 replications to assess seed set per capsule. The results revealed that highly significant differences were observed for number of well-developed seeds and underdeveloped seeds. Among four cross combinations ‘H.S. 88-10-22 x Shobha’ (27.63 well-developed seeds per capsule) and ‘H.S. 84-7-11 x Shobha’ (27.01 well-developed seeds per capsule) were significantly higher than those of other two cross combinations. The interaction effect of fresh pollen- cum- ‘H.S.88-10-22 x Shobha’ produced significantly higher number of welldeveloped seeds (41.02 per capsule) than those of the other treatment combinations. In contrast, treatment combinations viz., cryopreserved pollen- cum- ‘H.S. 88-10-22 x Shobha’ produced the lowest number of welldeveloped seeds (10.85 per capsule).Inclusion of fresh pollen to genotype ‘Shobha’ and cryopreserved pollen of H.S. 88-10-22' revealed better performances for maximum seed set per capsule. Nepal Journal of Science and Technology Vol. 14, No. 1 (2013) 31-34 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/njst.v14i1.8874

Fresh pollen of 16 promising genotypes of gladiolus was tested for their pollen viability. Modified cellophane method was employed to assess the pollen viability. Pollen germination media consisted of 15% sucrose supplemented with 300 ppm calcium nitrate, 200 ppm magnesium sulphate, 100 ppm potassium nitrate and 100 ppm boric acid. Highly significant variations were observed for percentage of pollen germination, non-germinated pollen and sterile pollen. The highest pollen germination (76.41%) was in genotype Hybrid selection 88-10-22, and did not differ significantly from Gladiolus callianthus (75.41%), Sapna (75.10 %), Hybrid selection 86-32-11, (73.28 %), Kum Kum (69.41%), Poonam (69.22 %), Hybrid selection 87-22-1 (67.87 %), Hybrid selection 87-1-1 (67.61 %), Psittacinus hybrid (64.64%) and Darshan (63.97%). The lowest non- germinated pollen (10.47%) was in genotype Gladiolus callianthus, and insignificantly followed by Hybrid selection 88-10-22 with 18.77 % and Hybrid selection 87-22-1 with 18.95 %. The lowest percentage of sterile pollen was noticed in genotype Sapna (2.82%) followed by Poonam with 4.00 % Hybrid selection 88-10-22 with 4.82% and Hybrid selection 82-11-27 with 5.22%. Key words: Gladiolus; germination; pollen DOI: 10.3126/njst.v11i0.4089Nepal Journal of Science and Technology 11 (2010) 47-50