Abstract
Bud stems arisen from in vitro cultures of A. scoparia were encapsulated in calcium alginate pieces for short term stockpile and germplasm interchange. The maximum frequency (88.96%) of conversion of encapsulated nodal segments into plantlets and the highest node number (7.20) was performed on a murashige and Skoog’s medium (MS medium) containing 2.2 μM banzyl adenine (BA). The highest length of re-growing shoots was achieved when MS medium was supplied with 2.2 μM BA and 0.5 μM NAA. However, the number of shoots produced was higher (5.30 and 5.10) on MS medium supplemented with 2.2 μM BA and 0.5 μM NAA and MS medium with 2.2 μM BA, respectively than on the hormone-free media. Treatment with 19.6 μM IBA resulted in the highest conversion of encapsulated nodal segments into plantlets. The frequency of conversion (89.6% - 88.6%) was retained at 25?C for up to 2 weeks without significant change. The highest frequencies (61.1%) of plantlet formation from encapsulated nodal segments were obtained by transferring synthetic seeds onto peat mass and perlite (2:1) (v/v) mixture substrate. When transplanted into the peat mass and perlite (2:1) (v/v) mixture, these plantlets showed greater plantlet high, leaf number, shoot number and root number per plantlet than those of the other substrates. The synthetic seed technology offered a promising way for short term storage without refrigerating, germplasm conservation exchange for improvement and an alternative clonal propagation method for this endangered genotype of A. scoparia.
Highlights
Amygdalus scoparia is an important medicinal and commercial species from Rosaceae that tolerates heat and drought
The length of re-growing shoots on MS medium supplemented with 2.2 μM banzyl adenine (BA) and 0.5 μM NAA (M4) was increased over other media (Table 1)
The use of MS medium supplemented with 2.2 μM BA resulted in production of the highest node (7.20) from encapsulated nodal segments (Table 1)
Summary
Amygdalus scoparia is an important medicinal and commercial species from Rosaceae that tolerates heat and drought. Alginate encapsulation is very useful technique due to its cost effectiveness in comparison to cryopreservation in a wide range of woody plant species [6] [7] In crop plants such as almonds that are difficult or even impossible to propagate through cuttings, the planting efficiency could be considerably improved by the use of synthetic seeds instead of cuttings [4]. Due to the importance of A. scoparia with sweet seed, which is a rare and endangered variety, synthetic seed technology using encapsulation of in vitro derived nodal segments of A. scoparia could become a potentially cost effective mass clonally propagation system. In this paper, the first successful attempt of the utilizing of synthetic seed technology for this rare and endangered medicinal plant using nodal segments from in vitro culture for encapsulation is reported. Efforts were made to test the ability of the encapsulated nodal segments to retain viability following different durations of storage, so that this technology could be useful for transfer of viable and elite germplasm of A. scoparia to nurseries and laboratories
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