Impact of drying and cooling rate on the survival of the desiccation-sensitive wheat pollen

KEY MESSAGE: Fast-drying and cooling induce fast intracellular water loss and reduced ice-crystal formation, which may promote the formation of intracellular glasses that might improve the likelihood of wheat pollen survival. ABSTRACT: Long-term storage of pollen is important for the fertilization of spatially or temporally isolated female parents, especially in hybrid breeding. Wheat pollen is dehydration-sensitive and rapidly loses viability after shedding. To preserve wheat pollen, we hypothesized that fast-drying and cooling rates would increase the rate of intracellular water content (WC) removal, decrease intracellular ice-crystal formation, and increase viability after exposure to ultra-low temperatures. Therefore, we compared slow air-drying with fast-drying (dry air flow) and found significant correlations between pollen WC and viability (r = 0.92, P < 0.001); significant differences in WCs after specific drying times; and comparable viabilities after drying to specific WCs. Fast-drying to WCs at which ice melting events were not detected (ΔH = 0 J mg(−1) DW, < 0.28 mg H(2)O mg(−1) DW) reduced pollen viability to 1.2 ± 1.0%, but when drying to 0.39 mg H(2)O mg(−1) DW, some viable pollen was detected (39.4 ± 17.9%). Fast cooling (150 °C min(−1)) of fast-dried pollen to 0.91 ± 0.11 mg H(2)O mg(−1) DW induced less and a delay of ice-crystal formation during cryomicroscopic-video-recordings compared to slow cooling (1 °C min(−1)), but viability was low (4.5–6.1%) and comparable between cooling rates. Our data support that the combination of fast-drying and cooling rates may enable the survival of wheat pollen likely due to (1) a reduction of the time pollen would be exposed to drying-related deleterious biochemical changes and (2) an inhibition of intracellular ice-crystal formation, but additional research is needed to obtain higher pollen survival after cooling. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00299-021-02819-w.