Matthew Nazarel A.

Denus December 6, 2018

C-5L Dr. Tonette P. Laude
Exercise 9: Crop Breeding
Narrative Report on Procedure, Similarities and Differences Between Controlled Pollination of
Self- and Cross- Pollinated Crops
Crop breeding is the art, science, and business of improving the genetic makeup of plants.
It is done for systematic improvement of crops thus the product of crop breeding is better or
improved varieties of crops. Moreover, the process of crop breeding in self- and cross- pollinated
crops have similarities and differences thus it is important to know the plant’s process of breeding.
Based from the activity we have done, we used rice as the representative of self-pollinated plant
and corn as the representative of cross-pollinated crop.
The similar procedure done in self-pollinated crops and cross-pollinated crops is the
bagging process. Bagging is the process of covering the female (receptive) flowers before anthesis
in order to protect the stigma and to prevent natural pollination. The bag used in this process is
called “glassin bag” which is a semi-transparent treated paper. This is firmly covered to the female
flowers by placing bag over the tip of the shoot and tying it to the shoot making it more secure.
The difference between the processes in self-pollinated and cross-pollinated crops is the
process of emasculation, which is done to dioecious plants like rice, and the process of tasseling,
which is done to monoecious plants like corn.
Rice (Oryza sativa) is a dioecious plant, meaning the female and male reproductive systems
occur on separate plants. In this kind of plants, emasculation or the removal of stamens from bisexual
plants of the female parents to avoid self-pollination can be done. This process is explained in Figure 1
which shows the procedure of emasculation in rice.

Balling a rice plant Manual removal of Removal of anthers

from the field using a the anthers using using the
sickle forceps emasculator machine

Clipping the spikelets

Tagging and placing Cover the
using scissors
the balled plant into emasculated panicle
(horizontally or
a plastic pail with glassin bag
diagonally)

Clearing or preparing Selecting panicles for

the plant for emasculation (at
emasculation least 50% emergerd)

Figure 1. Emasculation Procedure in Rice

 On the other hand, corn (Zea maize) which is a monoecious plant, meaning male and female
reproductive organs occur on the same plant but in separate structures. The male structure is the
tassel which is formed at the top of the plant consisting of hundreds of male flowers that have
stamens (the male reproductive organ). Conversely, the female structure called “ears” occurs on
the side of the plant, emerging from the leaf node. These flowers also called “silks” because of
their appearance and they only have pistils. The silks catch the pollen coming from the tassel
directly above them resulting to the pollination of female organs. In this kind of plant, tasseling is
done to prevent the natural pollination making cross pollination able to be done. Figure 2 shows
the process of cross pollination in corn.

Tasseling, covering the ear with glassin bag. Done

before silk emerged to prevent the pollination, bagging
of ear is done.

Cut the ear and silk (stigma receiving pollen). Tassel

releasing pollen will not receive/contaminate ear. Just
cut husk and silk, not whole cub.

Tassel bagging is done to collet pollen grains from one

male tassel before dehisced the anther.

One week after, dehisce anther, give pollen from the

pollen grains collected, put it on the ear cut on the
second step.

Figure 2. Cross Pollination of Corn.

The process of emasculation and tasseling is the huge difference in the process of self-
pollinated and cross-pollinated crops. However, the time of receptivity is also one of the main
differences of the two types of crops. Time of receptivity pertains to the time when the male organ
of a dioecious plant is active and based from our activity, we knew that the time of receptivity of
rice plants is on 8:30-9:00 in the morning during normal days and 10:30-11:00 in the morning
during gloomy days. However, time of receptivity is not a factor in the process of cross-pollinated
crops.
To sum it up, the similarity in the process of self-pollinated and cross-pollinated crops is
the use of the principle of bagging. The difference between the two is the process of breeding
mainly because of the type of their sexual reproduction (monoecious and dioecious). Emasculation
is done in dioecious plants while tasseling is done in monoecious plants like corn. Furthermore, the
two also differs on the time of receptivity.