Our knowledge of pollen, the gold dust that carries the male germ line of flowering plants and is vital for sexual reproduction and seed formation, has “come of age” with the publication of this book. Here, for the first time in a single volume, are all the ideas and techniques developed in the last two decades concerning the manipulation of pollen and pollen tubes in plant breeding and biotechnology. Pollen has never been an easy topic to come to grips with, with its variable and often inexplicable terminology that has made it a difficult field in which to work. This book will remedy that, with its overview of pollen biology and pollen–pistil interactions that explains terms and concepts of the male function of pollen in a way that is readily understandable.

This new biotechnology of pollen had its origins 40 years ago in developments in plant tissue culture, physiology, and electron microscopy, and, more recently, with the advent of molecular genetics. In reviewing pollen developmental processes and genetic defects in the early 1970s, Professor Jack Heslop-Harrison FRS showed how the opportunities for manipulation might be achieved: