Métodos para estimar el nivel de poliembrionía en semillas de lima mexicana y limón italiano

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Polyembryony is a common trait in most citrus varieties. The level of polyembryony has the potential to be used as a descriptor in the characterization of varieties or to select parents in conventional hybridization work. The aim of this research was to find an efficient methodology to detect, count and estimate the potential number of embryos per seed, the percentage of polyembryonic seeds and the level of polyembryony in the varieties ‘Colimex’ and ‘Lise’ of Mexican lime, and the variety ‘Rosenberger’ of true lemon. Four methodologies were evaluated: 1) direct counting of embryos in mature seeds (DCEMS), 2) direct counting of embryos in immature seeds (DCEIS), 3) counting of seedlings derived from mature seeds germinated in vitro (CSMSGV) and 4) counting of seedlings derived from mature seeds germinated in substrate (CSMSGS). The highest averages of embryos per seed and percentage of polyembryonic seeds were recorded with the DCEMS and CSMSGV methods (P ≤ 0.01), so it was concluded that they are adequate to estimate these variables in the genotypes studied. The varieties ‘Colimex’ and ‘Lise’ had 80.65 and 78.27 %, respectively, of seeds with two or more embryos, resulting in a high level of polyembryony, while ‘Rosenberger’, with 18.37 %, was slightly polyembryonic (P ≤ 0.01).