Male sterility is characterized by non-functional pollen grains, while female gametes function normally. It occurs in nature sporadically, perhaps due to mutation. The phenomenon of male sterility is of great significance to produce cost effective hybrid seeds. Onion crop provides one of the rare examples of very early recognition of male sterility (Jones and Emsweller, 1936), its inheritance and use in hybrid seed production (Jones and Clarke, 1943). Since then male sterility has been reported in fairly large number of crops including vegetables. | A review on male sterility - Concepts and utilization in vegetable crops
