Question

When and why does a plant breeder employ the emasculation technique?

Answer 1

Plant breeders employed this technique to prevent pollination within the same flower or to pollinate stigmas with pollens of the desired variety. To remove the anthers, the flowers are covered with a bag before they open. This ensures that the flower is pollinated by pollen grains obtained from desirable varieties only. Later, the mature, viable, and stored pollen grains are dusted on the bagged stigma by breeders to allow artificial pollination to take place and obtain the desired plant variety.