Mass production of seed by controlled crossing of selected individuals is a
n increasingly important method of capturing genetic gain from tree breedin
g. In Eucalyptus the conventional controlled pollination (CP) method requir
es at least three separate visits to a flower, and seed is correspondingly
costly. This paper reports development of a cost-efficient pollination tech
nique referred to as one-stop pollination (OSP) for application in seed orc
hards of Eucalyptus globulus Labill. in Chile. Emasculation of the flower a
t anthesis is followed by slicing the stigma and top of the style to provid
e a site for pollen adherence. Pollen is applied immediately, followed by i
solation of the style from contaminating pollen by covering with a section
of tubing. It is then not necessary to revisit until capsule harvest. Seed
yield per capsule after OSP treatment was equivalent to that achieved by tr
eating flowers with supplementary pollination at the time of natural stigma
receptivity. Only 5% of those flowers pollinated at anthesis without style
wounding set a capsule, compared with 69% with OSP. Seed yield for OSP ave
raged 26 seeds per capsule compared with 12 for open-pollinated samples fro
m the same trees. The effect of orchard location on OSP harvest percentage
and seed yield was demonstrated. With application of OSP in the environment
of the Chilean orchard, we estimate a sevenfold reduction in seed producti
on cost in comparison to conventional pollination techniques.