ISHS Acta Horticulturae 486: II International Symposium on Ornamental Palms & other Monocots from the Tropics
BREEDING OF ALSTROEMERIA THROUGH INTERSPECIFIC CROSSES AND EMBRYO-RESCUE |
| Authors: | G. Burchi, A. Mercuri, T. Schiva |
| Abstract:
At present, with more than 130 cultivars, Alstroemeria shows one of the best trends in the international market for cut flower production. Most of these cultivars have been selected in the Netherlands, in cultural conditions of relatively low temperature and light, and high humidity. In the Italian environmental conditions, most of these genotypes show a poor flowering ability in the winter season (the most important for cut flower production): for these reasons a breeding program, utilising Brazilian and Chilean species, was established. The ultimate goal is to select new genotypes suitable for cultivation in the Mediterranean area and to obtain new colors and new architectures of inflorescences. The major constant in this goal is the presence of genetic barriers that provoke embryo abortion in interspecific hybridization, in particular between the Chilean and the Brazilian genotypes. To overcome this obstacle, an "in vitro" protocol for embryo-rescue of recalcitrant crosses was developed. The results of this breeding activity, reported in this paper, show that it is possible, through "in vitro" embryo-rescue procedures, to recover interspecific hybrids from botanical species usually unable to produce progeny when crossed. | |
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