Genetic analysis of in vitro callus and production of multiple shoots in eggplant.

Chakravarthi, D. V. N.; Rao, Y. V.; Rao, M. V. S.; Manga, V.

Genetic analysis of four in vitro characters (callus initiation, callus productivity, embryogenic callus percentage, and mean number of regenerated shoots per callus) was conducted using a 6 × 6 diallel cross among four cultivars of eggplant ( Solanum melongena) and two related species ( S. indicum, S. surattense) showing different in vitro responses. Among the 30 hybrid families, the in vitro performance exceeded the midparent in 19, 29, 18, and 22 cases, respectively, for callus initiation, callus productivity, embryogenic callus induction, and number of regenerated shoots. Both additive and dominant effects were significant and additive gene action was predominant for three of four in vitro characters with the exception of callus productivity. Different degrees of dominance were observed in the expression of the four characters. The broad and narrow sense heritabilities were 0.97 and 0.82 for callus initiation frequency, 0.99 and 0.42 for total amount of callus, 0.99 and 0.92 for E-callus productivity, and 0.99 and 0.73 for mean number of shoots, respectively, suggesting that these traits can be easily transferred into economically important cultivars with low tissue culture response or recalcitrance.

EGGPLANT; PLANT genetics; PLANT shoots; CULTIVARS; PLANT tissue culture; HETEROSIS

Plant Cell, Tissue & Organ Culture, 2010, Vol 102, Issue 1, p87

0167-6857

Academic Journal

10.1007/s11240-010-9709-5