Ovule-embryo culture and plant regeneration of thermopsis turcica, critically endangered Turkish endemic

Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11626-013-9610-8

The possibility of micropropagation for the endangered Thermopsis turcica investigated through an fruit ovuleembryo culture. This technique prevents embryo degradation at early development stage, shortens breeding time, and efficient propagation of many plants from a single embryo, without the need for breaking seed dormancy. Although a number of efficient propagation protocols of T. turcica has been reported for multiple shoot induction and plantlet regeneration from the seeds of T. turcica, to date no publication exists on any protocol on fruit embryo culture of T. turcica. The main constraint to the transfer of desired traits into cultivated from wild relatives T. turcica are the habitat conditions, and the presence of uncertain seed predators consuming T. turcica seeds for larval development. This paper reports on the preliminary optimisation of protocols for rescuing Thermopsis turcica fruit embryos. The protocol for embryo culture used in this research consisted ofcracking the fruit, pitting open to remove the seed, excising the ovule-embryo from the seed, placing it on the medium modified from established Fabaceae embryo rescue tissue culture media, extracting embryos from ovular integuments, and culturing. During culturing, cotyledons began to arise and grow plantlets. These results show that embryo culture technique can be an alternative ex-situ conservation technique for the protection of threatened rare plant species Thermopsis turcica.