GENOME ENGINEERING BREEDING OF APPLE IN VITRO

With 0.4% – 0.8% colchicine mutants were induced in open pollinated embryos of 7 diploid cultivars of apple. The embryos were cultured in vitro. The plumule was restrained from growing into a shoot and the genome mutated tetraploid cells were induced to differentiate adventitious buds and then to form plantlets. By means of chromosome counts and parafine sections of shoot apices, a lot of wholly tetraploid plants have been identified, and some of them have been grown in the orchard. This study provides an easy and reliable method to induce mutations and may effectively eliminate the disturbance of chimeras resulting from the usual methods for inducing mutations. This study provides a new method for creating tetraploid germplasm artificially and for carrying out polyploid breeding in plants.