Preliminary results of differentiating apple sports by pollen ultrastructure

The pollen grain surface morphology of two Red Delicious apple (Malus × domestica Borkh.) sports, Aversang and Ultrared, and two Gala apple sports, Galalea and Splenola, were examined using scanning electron microscopy for genotype differentiation. Quantitative data on pollen dimensions, ridge patterns, and pore dimensions were extracted from micrographs using image analysis. Data were examined with analysis of variance, canonical variate analysis, and discriminant analysis in order to differentiate genotypes. The combination of image analysis to extract quantitative data and multivariate analysis was successful in differentiating apple sports with exine pore and pollen grain measurements.[PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]