Study of cross pollination of honeysuckle varieties

Abstract

Since blue honeysuckle (Lonicera caerulea L.) is a prometatropic plant, it is very important to select varieties that may provide mutual high-quality cross-pollination to obtain a high yield with a limited number of varieties in commercial plantations and amateur gardens. The research goal was to study the cross pollination of promising honeysuckle varieties. The studies were carried out from 2020 through 2022 in the Research Institute of Gardening in Siberia named after M.A. Lisavenko of the Federal Altai Scientific Center of Agro-Biotechnologies within the “The program and methodology for variety study of fruit, berry and nut-fruited crops”. The selection of pollinators was carried out according to the following pollination variants: 1) artificial pollination with pollen from other individual varieties; 2) free pollination - the control. The research targets were popular varieties in demand for commercial production. The varieties Berel, Viking, Yumis, and Kasmala were used as mother plants. Pollination was carried out with pollen from the varieties Berel, Viking, Yumis, Kasmala, Bakcharskiy velikan, Silginka and Vostorg. The average percentage of fruit-sets with natural free pollination during the years of research ranged from 76.0 for the Kasmala variety to 89.7 for the Berel variety. According to the research findings, a high percentage of fruit-sets compared to free pollination makes it possible to recommend the varieties Yumis and Viking (85.2-95.2%) as the best pollinators for the variety Berel; for the variety Kasmala - the varieties Bakcharskiy velikan, Vostorg and Yumis (85.3%, 87.4%, 88.9%); for the varieties Viking and Yumis – the variety Kasmala (82.8-74.3%). The varieties Berel and Viking varieties are recommended as acceptable pollinators for Kasmala and Yumis varieties; the variety Silginka - for Yumis and Berel varieties. For the Viking variety, the Silginka variety is a poor pollinator (fruit setting 49.5% compared to the control). In commercial plantations, in order to obtain adequate pollination and high yields, all the studied varieties should be alternated.