(267) The Effects of Media Types on Rescued Peach Embryos

Abstract

A major obstacle faced by programs that breed early-ripening peach cultivars [Prunus persica (L.) Batsch] is the low viability of the embryos from the early-ripening parents that are used as females. Embryo culture techniques have been developed to allow embryos to mature in vitro, thus increasing the chances of germination and survivability. Several media types exist for Prunus embryo culture. Two types, Woody Plant Medium (WPM) and Smith, Bailey, and Hough (SBH) were investigated for this report. The WPM type was studied in two forms, one made from scratch and the other in a prepackaged form. The SBH type was studied with the addition of vitamins and without vitamins. Eight peach genotypes with embryo lengths ranging from 9.6 to 12.7 mm were used. Surprisingly enough, it was found that WPM from scratch performed better than WPM from a prepackaged mix. For all eight genotypes studied, WPM from scratch resulted in as good as or better germination than SBH with or without vitamins. A large media by genotype effect was found, which is partially attributed to the embryo size. The genotypes with larger embryos (>11 mm) tended to perform equally on all media tested whereas the embryos <10.5 mm germinated better on WPM as compared to SBH.