Micropropagation and cryopreservation of the rare endemic Colchicum figlalii germplasm.

BACKGROUND: The natural population of Colchicum figlalii (Varol) Parolly and Eren grows in a narrow area of serpentine rock clearings at an altitude of 1900-2100 m in Southwestern Anatolia (Sandras Mountain, Mugla, Turkey). The species is regarded as endangered according to the IUCN Red List Categories. OBJECTIVE: To develop an optimum procedure for in vitro propagation and cryopreservation of germplasm of this rare endemic. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 281 bulbs were used as in vitro culture starting material and after surface sterilization, clean material was obtained from 157 of them. Woody Plant Medium (WPM), Olive Medium (OM), and Murashige and Skoog medium (MS) were used for in vitro culture establishment. RESULTS: The maximum regeneration rate (~67.3%) was obtained after four weeks of incubation on OM. The calli were successfully induced by using OM supplemented with 10.7 uM NAA from leaves of in vitro grown C. figlalii bulbs. A PVS2-vitrification procedure was used for cryopreservation of C. figlalii callus tissue. After cryo-storage, the best result for regeneration (66.7%) was obtained from calli treated with PVS2 for 75 min before plunging into liquid nitrogen. All rooted seedlings derived from cryopreserved calli were successfully acclimatized to greenhouse conditions. CONCLUSION: This study is an effective reference for future long-term conservation of similar species that are difficult to cryopreserve. Doi.org/10.54680/fr24410110412.

Genetic diversity among melon accessions (Cucumis melo) from Turkey based on SSR markers.

Melon (Cucumis melo) is an important vegetable crop in Turkey, where it is grown in many regions; the most widely planted lines are local winter types belonging to the var. inodorous. We examined 81 melon genotypes collected from different provinces of Turkey, compared with 15 reference melon genotypes obtained from INRA/France, to determine genetic diversity among Turkish melons. Twenty polymorphic primers were used to generate the SSR markers. PCR amplification was performed and electrophoresis was conducted. SSR data were used to generate a binary matrix. For cluster analysis, UPGMA was employed to construct a clustering dendrogram based on the genetic distance matrix. The cophenetic correlation was compared with the similarity matrix using the Mantel matrix correspondence test to evaluate the representativeness of the dendrogram. A total of 123 alleles were amplified using the 20 SSR primer sets. The number of alleles detected by a single primer set ranged from 2 to 12, with an average of 6.15. The similarity ranged from 0.22 to 1.00 in the dendrogram developed from microsatellite analysis. Based on this molecular data, we concluded that genetic diversity among these Turkish accessions is relatively high.

Gelling agents and culture vessels affect in vitro multiplication of banana plantlets.

Agar is the most commonly used gelling agent in media for plant tissue culture. Because of the high price of tissue-culture-grade agar, attempts have been made to identify suitable alternatives. The type of culture vessel and lid also affects the gaseous composition inside the vessel as well as light penetration. In turn, the vessel affects growth parameters, such as shoot elongation, proliferation and fresh weight, as well as hyperhydric degradation processes. We examined the effects of different culture vessels, including commercial glass jars, magenta boxes, and disposable containers, as well as different gelling agents (agar-agar, Agargel, Phytagel, and plant agar) on the micropropagation of Dwarf Cavendish bananas in an effort to find a combination that yields large numbers of high-quality seedlings. The different culture vessels did not significantly affect seedling culture success. The medium significantly affected shoot weight. Phytagel resulted in the highest shoot weight (overall mean = 2.4 g), while agar, Agargel and plant agar resulted in 1.7, 2.2 and 2.2 g, respectively. Disposable container/Phytagel and Magenta/Agargel combinations yielded the highest shoot weights (2.9 and 3.0 g, respectively). Mean shoot length increased progressively with subculture (four subcultures were made). The highest mean shoot length was obtained with Phytagel and Agargel media (6.4 and 6.3 cm, respectively). Shoot number was significantly affected by medium only at subculture 4. Overall, the highest mean shoot length was obtained with the Magenta/Agargel combination (8.5 cm). Phytagel and plant agar gave higher mean shoot number than agar and Agargel (2.1, 2.1 and 1.7 and 1.9, respectively). The costs of the media and of the culture vessels need to be taken into account for final choice of the banana shoot culture system.