SHOOT REGENERATION FROM ANDROGENIC CALLUS OF APPLE CULTIVARS OBTAINED VIA ANTHER CULTURE

Homozygous plants are interesting for genetic studies and to improve breeding efficiency.
Until now the production of homozygous apple plants via anther culture was mainly assessed by regeneration of androgenic embryos.
Because of the high amount of callus production compared to embryo production in our anther cultures we investigated the possibility to regenerate homozygous plants using these calli as starting material.
To obtain regeneration, calli were put on 23 different regeneration media and under two different light conditions (darkness and 16 h light). Eight calli on a total amount of 700 cultured calli produced shoots.
Cyto-histological sections showed that most of the calli had a dense cytoplasm, which is a positive criterion for regeneration capacity.
Calli and shoots were tested for homozygosity using PCR of the self-incompatibility alleles and Simple Sequence Repeats.
All the tested shoots were homozygous.
Investigations of ploidy level were carried out by flow cytometry.
Most of the calli were diploid (37 %) or tetraploid (29 %).

Eucarpia symposium on Fruit Breeding and Genetics

S. Geysen, M. Hoet, S. Schroeven, J. Keulemans

Malus x domestica, androgenesis, homozygosity, ploidy

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2000.538.116