Tissue culture of the Egyptian cotton cultivars: Production and morphological heterogeneity of primary callus tissues

Abstract

The success in applying new technologies to improve cotton cultivars, G. barbadense, has been limited. Here we report results that show an increase in somatic embryogenesis efficiency of four Egyptian cotton cultivars; Giza70, Alexandria4, Bahtem101 and Hairy Free. Attempts to form calluses from roots and stem parts of the above cultivars were not successful, whereas, the use of cotyledon and hypo‐cotyledon tissues produced by the embryos of the seeds have been successful. Seeds were activated by inclusion of Verticilium dahlia in the growing media. High callus frequencies and embryogenic tissues were developed. Morphology of callus tissues has been determined using stereoscopic microscope. Four types of primary callus tissues were identified in primary culture of hypocotyls and cotyledons of the four cotton cultivars. Using the above protocol, we could produce plantlets from the above mentioned cultivars that reached up to 29.2, 28.2, 20.4 and 18.5% of their starting somatic embryos, respectively. The above results pave the way for future transformation experiments of cotton plants.