Institute of Agricultural Botany, Department of Plant Physiology and Biotechnology, University of Bonn, Karlrobert-Kreiten Str. 13, 53115 Bonn, Germany.
1Present address and address for correspondence: Discipline of Phytosalinity, Central Salt and Marine Chemicals Research Institute, Bhavnagar-364 002.
Protoplasts were isolated from hypocotyls, petiols and leaves of cultivated and wild Helianthus species. Highest number of pro top lasts were obtained from petiols of cultivar Euroflor i.e. 9.0 × 105 PP g−1 fw while lowest numbers were obtained from mesophylls of both cultivated as well as from wild Helianthus sps. The isolated protoplasts were cultured as liquid suspensions cultures at densities ranging from 1 × 104 to 2 × 105 PP ml−1 with two concentrations of BAP and NAA ie at 0.5 and 1.0 mg/l. Hypocotyl protoplasts plated at 1 × 105 PP ml−1 from cultivars Apisol, Cerflor and Euroflor showed good plating efficiencies i.e., above 75% with 1.0 mg/l of BAP and NAA followed by petiol protoplasts which showed 40–47%. In case of mesophyll protoplasts divisions were observed only in cultivar Cerflor but not significantly whereas mesophyll protoplasts derived from the wild species of Helianthus, ie H. grosseserratus and H. maximillianii did not undergo any division even after 10 days and remained recalcitrant.
Helianthus annuus, mitotic index, plating efficiency protoplasts yield
