Influence of Pollination Treatments on Fruit Set and Development in Parthenocarpic Tomato

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Abstract
Flowers of 3 parthenocarpic tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) genotypes, ‘Severianin’ (pat-2), PSET-1 (pat-2) and RP 75/79, and one nonparthenocarpic genotype, ‘Tiny Tim’ (pat-2+), were given various pollination treatments in a greenhouse study: a) natural pollination, b) pollination with a hand vibrator, c) emasculation followed by pollination with mentor (heat-killed) pollen, d) emasculation only, e) removal of stigmas, and f) removal of the distil half of the anthers and styles. RP 75/59 had greater total fruit set than did the pat-2 genotypes. Treatments preventing pollination inhibited seed formation of all genotypes and inhibited fruit set of ‘Tiny Tim’. Mentor pollen did not increase parthenocarpic fruit set for any genotype. Vibration of the flowers completely inhibited parthenocarpic fruit set for all genotypes except PSET-1, which had 15.7% parthenocarpic fruit. No difference in fruit size or days to ripening for seeded vs. seedless fruit were evident for the pat-2 genotypes. Seeded fruit of RP 75/59 were larger than seedless fruit (34.2 g vs. 20.3 g), and also took longer to ripen (2.9 days).

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