Oryzalin Treatment of Potato Diploids Yields Tetraploid and Chimeric Plants from which Euploids could be Derived by Callus Induction

Abstract

Shoot apices from six diploid potato genotypes for polyploidisation were treated with oryzalin and colchicine solutions at different concentrations and incubation times. In addition to chimeric plants, diploids, one octoploid and completely ploidy doubled plants (4x) were regenerated in these experiments. Tetraploid plants were obtained for three of the six genotypes treated with oryzalin, and no tetraploid plants were obtained after colchicine treatments of any of the genotypes. The best result of 43% tetraploid plants was achieved using 28.8 μM oryzalin and 24 h of incubation with the L37 genotype. Moreover, we determined that doubled plants should not be selected on the basis of a single measurement and require additional ploidy checks in successive clonal generations. Some L37 plants that were initially identified as tetraploids by flow cytometry produced diploid or mixoploid plants in the next clonal generation. Morphological characters of doubled L37 plants were compared with the original genotype. The PVY resistance present in a parental clone was maintained in all regenerants and significant differences among ploidy variants were found for some quantitative characters. Molecular AFLP analyses did not show any differences among genotypes. Since polyploidizing substances may produce a large proportion of chimeric plants, we applied a method to increase the number of tetraploid plants. Callus culture of chimeric leaf explants was performed on regeneration medium and tetraploid shoots were obtained in four of the six genotypes tested. The best result of 40% tetraploid plants was achieved with explants from the L37 genotype. This method was successful in producing additional tetraploid genotypes from mixoploid plants obtained after oryzalin treatments.