Somaclonal Variation in Lilium "Nymph"

Ernie DeMarie via pbs pbs@lists.ibiblio.org
Mon, 07 Jul 2014 13:26:07 PDT

Hi Mohammad,
Interesting, it does seem that some tissue culture methods can cause changes in the resultant plants.  When I did my thesis work many years ago on tissue culturing pelargonium species, I found that using callus cultures to rescue hybrid embryos between different species would sometimes yield both diploid (expected) and tetraploid plants. Perhaps the transformation of the embryos into callus and back to differentiated shoots allowed for some tetraploid cells to form and grow as shoots whereas if the embryo was grown directly into a plant such a cell might not have a chance to become a shoot on its own.  I also think that more time in tissue culture means more chance for genetic mutations, so you could get odd plants every now and then from the mutated cell.  For example, some Venus Fly Trap (Dionaea muscipula) cultivars apparently arose as tissue cultured mutations.  
Ernie DeMarie
Briarcliff Manor, New York 
Where rhodohypoxis, hypoxis, many oxalis, ledebourias and drimias are blooming in pots, Zantedeschia blooming in pots and Z albomaculata in the garden after surviving the winter.  Unfortunately Japanese beetles seem to like the spathes. 

 




 



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