This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Most people assume plants reproduce through whatever pollen happens to land on them. A collaborative research initiative involving the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar (IITGN) has mapped and functionally tested the genes that control a natural "self-rejection" system in two widely grown Indian oilseed crops, Brassica rapa (mustard) varieties toria and yellow sarson.
This system governs the molecular "lock-and-key" mechanism in certain mustard plants that allows them to reject their own pollen. With India importing more than half of its edible oil, a dependence that met roughly 56% of domestic demand in 2023–24, and the government pushing for self-reliance, the research could offer plant breeders and farmers a new foundation for producing high-yielding hybrid mustard. The study, a collaboration with the Indian Council of Agricultural Research-Directorate of Rapeseed-Mustard Research (ICAR-DRMR), Bharatpur, was recently published in Frontiers in Plant Science.
Many flowering plants have a built-in system called self-incompatibility (SI). Self-rejection, or SI, allows a flower to reject its own pollen and accept pollen from other plants. By refusing self-pollen, a plant forces crossbreeding, which mixes genes, avoids inbreeding and produces offspring that are often hardier and more productive than either parent.
This maintains genetic diversity and promotes hybrid vigor. For agricultural breeders seeking to develop high-yielding hybrid seeds, this self-rejection system is a gift, sparing breeders the tedium of removing pollen by hand from thousands of flowers. Producing hybrid seeds on a commercial scale is difficult if the maternal plant destroys its own pollen or, conversely, if it self-pollinates accidentally before the breeder can introduce the partner line.
"To maximize crop yields through hybridization, we need precise control over pollination, which is aided by self-rejection," said Dr. Subramanian Sankaranarayanan, the study's corresponding author and assistant professor at IITGN's Department of Biological Sciences and Engineering. "Though SI has been extensively studied in Brassica napus (canola), the molecular basis of this mechanism is poorly characterized in India's commercially grown Brassica rapa varieties, toria and yellow sarson." The IITGN team, led by Sankaranarayanan, with co-first authors Hemal Bhalla and Kumari Ankita and colleagues Aman Ahlawat and Surabhi S.
Rode, decided to study the pollination process in the aforementioned plants. Toria rejects its own pollen, demonstrating self-incompatibility, whereas yellow sarson accepts it, demonstrating self-compatibility. The molecular "lock-and-key" mechanism determining these outcomes is located on the surface of the plant's female reproductive tissue, the stigma.
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