There have been some small details to fix on my data that I posted yesterday so I have attached a new and improved csv file below. I also ran the chi-square again today removing one cross that was not securely an incompatible cross. When removing this point the results for higher incompatibility within remnant crosses became more significant (X2 = 4.33, df = 1, P = 0.038).
My methods for assessing whether there was compatibility between two plants was to collect pollen from a randomly selected paternal plant and then introducing that pollen on five styles of a randomly selected maternal plant. The styles on the maternal plant were marked by painting the bracts behind the styles a unique color and noting the direction the styles were facing on the head. After introducing pollen, styles were given 24 hours to experience shriveling before assessment. A shriveled style was indicative of a compatible cross while a persistent style signaled incompatibility. The plant that I removed for the second chi-square showed 3 persistent styles and 2 shriveled styles when assessed. I was unable to do the cross again given that the plant ended flowering quite early on, and given that it showed only 60% assurance of incompatibility I decided to reject the cross from the statistical analysis.
My original sample size was 30 plants found in the common garden that were progeny from Steven’s Approach, East Riley and Nessman. There were no biparental inbred plants included in the sample. However, towards the end of the crosses one of the plants from Steven’s Approach died before it could receive pollen so I randomly selected a new plant in order to finish the crosses. If I remove the crosses done on the later selected plant the chi-square analysis of the compatibility for between and within remnant crosses becomes slightly less significant (X2 = 3.80, df = 1, P = 0.051).
I have also attached my original data sheets from style assessment as a pdf.
btw.within.crosses.csv
ians.crosses.2010.pdf
Leave a Reply