Executive Summary : | Interspecific/intergeneric/wide hybridization is an effective tool to transfer useful genes governing important traits from wild species/ uncultivated species to cultivated varieties. The difficulty in raising interspecific hybrids is basically sexual self incompatilbility, embryo inviability, seed dormany, haploid production etc. Embryo rescue (ER) is the sterile isolation and in vitro culturing of immature fertilized embryo to obtain a viable and fertile plant. This tissue culture intervention is adopted to overcome the post fertilization developmental barriers originating from the differences in the pattern/rate of embryogenesis of two distant parental lines. Also by culturing immature embryos under in vitro conditions, the duration of the breeding cycle can be significantly reduced in crop like Soybean. Therefore Embryo rescue is applied in plant breeding, as a powerful and important technique to speed up breeding programs, pre breeding and break natural barriers of gene transfer. As of today no viable protocol for development of embryo rescue in Indian soybean has been published or patented. Hence, the project will lead to development of protocol for successful production of wide crosses in soybean, knowledge of genotype showing more efficient regeneration, knowledge of specific media and its components for carrying out ER in soybean breeding. The knowledge will provide insights to embryo development and thereafter solutions to seed related problems in soybean The research reported here was aimed at developing a protocol for recovering interspecific hybrid of wide cross of elite accessions of Glycine max and other wild species from embryos cultured as early as the first few weeks after pollination. |