**Abstract**

In the current chapter, using different agricultural crops as an example, the effectiveness of pollen selection techniques for drought and heat resistance are demonstrated, as well as methods to evaluate plant drought tolerance by its male gametophyte. Germination of pollen from *F*<sup>1</sup> sunflower hybrid on the stigmas moistened with an osmotic resulted in drought resistance improvement of *F*<sup>2</sup> sporophytic generation, increasing the number of drought tolerant genotypes. Heating sunflower pollen increased both the plant adaptability to drought in dry field conditions and germination of seeds under osmotic stress. Pollination with heated pollen created opportunities to increase the share of drought resistant genotypes in the progeny of oil flax sporophytes. In interspecific tomato hybrids pollen treatment with high temperature was accompanied by a predominant elimination of unstable to various stresses pollen grains with cultivated species alleles in favor of wild ones. The hightemperature impact on the heterogeneous pollen population increased the proportion of drought-resistant genotypes in the sporophyte population and changed the Mendelian segregation ratios for a number of marker genes in maize. The genes were revealed, which influence drought resistance or are linked to the genes responsible for tolerance of pollen and plants to water stress in some crops.

**Keywords:** male gametophyte, osmotic, heating, pollen germination, selective elimination, sporophyte, drought tolerance, marker gene, segregation ratio, cultivated plant
