Monitoring of heavy metal (zinc sulphate) toxicity by using pollen as Indicators - Pollen of Vigna unguiculata: Further Evidence of a Criticism of Banerji and Gangulee (1937), Dharurkar (1971-Ph.D. Thesis), Nair, Nambudiri and Thomas (1973), Berg (1973),

Zinc sulphate affected the germination of seed of Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp. The treatment of 0.1 mg/ml of zinc sulphate showed the adverse effect on the phenology. It caused decrease in the fertility of pollen with an increase in the concentrations. This proves the gametocidic behaviour of the heavy metal. Though it affected the fertility of pollen, however, none of the concentration could bring down the fertility to zero percent. Potentiality of the germinability of pollen was noted in all the 4 series i.e. F, F-24, F-48, F-72 investigated. The heavy metal stimulated the germination of pollen of F, F-24 and F-48 series. All the concentrations of zinc sulphate inhibited the germination of pollen of F-72 series as well as the pollen tube growth of all the 4 series. The present investigation also shows that pollen germination and tube elongation are two different processes differing in their sensitivity to different concentrations of the heavy metal. It is also confirmed that the pollen development and activity are more sensitive indicators of adverse factors in the botanical environment and the use of an entire vascular plant as an indicator of pollution is a very crude method and rather a wrong choice.

Abstract licence: CC BY-NC

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