National Research Centre for Citrus, Amravati Road, Nagpur 440 010
Ovules were exercised from 8 weeks old fruits of Nagpur mandarins and cultured in basal salt solution of MS and MS supplemented with ME and MS supplemented with growth regulators, viz. NAA, IAA, BAP, IBA and kinetin. The cotyledonary embryoids obtained from MS + ME medium were again sub-cultured in MS and with different growth regulators. Results indicated that the percentage of different kinds of embryoids varied with supplementation. Addition of malt extract induced higher percentage of cotyledonary embryoids followed by basal medium. The data were further recorded 6 weeks after cotyledonary embryoids culture. The basal medium had significant effect on root length, shoot, root, plant and embryoid weight. Among growth regulators, kinetin (0.1 mg/litre) alone and in combination with IAA (2 mg/litre each) promoted plantlet formation. NAA (1 mg/litre) promoted embryogenesis. Thus, it is possible to produce reasonable number of plants via somatic embryogenesis and it can be adopted favourably for genetic studies and breeding experiments to improve Nagpur mandarins.
