Abstract
Boron deficiency causes male sterility in wheat but sensitivity differs among cultivars. In previous studies, a B- inefficient cultivar (cv. SW 41) growing in sand culture at low B supply produced pollen that appeared normal at vacuolated young microspore stage, but by anthesis, had become deformed and empty containing no starch (Rerkasem et al., 1997). It has been suggested that the adverse effect of B deficiency may be related to the B requirement during the critical phase of anther development surrounding pollen meiosis: the period from premeiotic interphase through meiosis to late tetrad (Rawson, 1996; Huang et al., 2000). This study was to test the effect of short term B deficiency on pollen quality of B efficient and inefficient wheat cultivars to determine whether different sensitivities to B deficiency during critical stages of pollen microsporogenesis might explain the known cultivar differences in B efficiency.