Effect of sodium chloride, PGDO and Arabic gum in pollen liquid diluent on suspensibility of kiwi pollen

This study was conducted to develop the pollen liquid diluent suitable for the artificial pollination of kiwi. The pollen of ‘Matua’ kiwi was collected at 1 day before flowering. Five concentrations of sodium chloride (0, 50, 150, 250, and 350 mg․L-1), four concentrations of poly (glycolide-co-p-dioxanone) (0, 7, 14, and 21 mg․L-1), and four concentrations of arabic gum (0, 150, 350, and 550 mg․L-1) were tested on an absent condition of each component in the pollen liquid diluent. Twenty mg of pollen was distributed in beakers containing 10 mL of the pollen liquid diluent. Suspensibility of the pollen liquid diluent was measured by the sensory evaluation and particle size analyzer. The addition of sodium chloride in pollen liquid diluent was effectible for the suspensibility improvement and the promotion of pollen growth in kiwi pollen. The kiwi pollen in pollen liquid diluent could be suspended without damage in pollen germination at low concentration of poly (glycolide-co-p-dioxanone) (PGDO), which has been known as a safe surfactant. The addition of Arabic gum would be highly advantageous to the stabilization of the pollen liquid diluent without any contamination for pollen growth. Kiwi fruits were set and grown well by the artificial pollination using the pollen liquid diluent. Therefore, the use of the pollen liquid diluent in the artificial pollination of kiwi fruit should be an effective practice

Distance and Reddening of the Isolated Dwarf Irregular Galaxy NGC 1156

We present a photometric estimation of the distance and reddening values to the dwarf irregular galaxy NGC 1156, which is one of the best targets to study the isolated dwarf galaxies in the nearby universe. We have used the imaging data sets of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) High Resolution Channel (HRC) of the central region of NGC 1156 (26" X 29") available in the HST archive for this study. From the (U-B, B-V) color-color diagram, we first estimate the total (foreground + internal) reddening toward NGC 1156 of E(B-V) =0.35 +/- 0.05 mag, whereas only the foreground reddening was previously known to be E(B-V)=0.16 mag (Burstein & Heiles) or 0.24 mag (Schlegel, Finkbeiner, & Davis). Based on the brightest stars method, selecting the three brightest blue supergiant (BSG) stars with mean B magnitude of = 21.94 mag and the three brightest red supergiant (RSG) stars with mean V magnitude of = 22.76 mag, we derive the distance modulus to NGC 1156 to be (m-M)_{0,BSG} = 29.55 mag and (m-M)_{0,RSG} = 29.16 mag. By using weights of 1 and 1.5 for the distance moduli from using the BSGs and the RSGs, respectively, we finally obtain the weighted mean distance modulus to NGC 1156 (m-M)_0 = 29.39 +/- 0.20 mag (d = 7.6 +/- 0.7 Mpc), which is in very good agreement with the previous estimates. Combining the photometry data of this study with those of Karachentsev et al. gives smaller distance to NGC 1156, which is discussed together with the limits of the data.Comment: 18 pages, 8 figures, Accepted by PASJ (2012 Apr issue