COMPARISON OF MEDIA FOR THEIR APTITUDE IN WHEAT ANTHER CULTURE

Different media were evaluated with anthers of five spring wheat (Trit icum aestivum L.) genotypes for their ability to produce embryos and g reen plants in anther culture. Our first experiment showed that the ad dition of a combination of 19 amino acids significantly increased the number of embryos and green plants obtained. The mean number of green plants per 100 anthers for the two genotypes in this experiment, HY320 and B723, went from 28.2 without amino acids in the medium, to 46.7 w ith addition of amino acids. Our second experiment with the genotypes HY320, Wim and Laval-19 showed that liquid medium with Ficoll is more efficient for anther culture (9.9 green plants/100 anthers) than solid (0 green plants), gelatinous media (2.5 green plants/100 anthers) or liquid medium with Membrane Rafts (0 green plants; Hoechst Celanese Co rp.). Our third experiment revealed that the effect of replacement of sucrose by maltose varied with the genotype of the donor plant. Maltos e partially inhibited the androgenesis of three responsive genotypes, HY320, Wim and Reliance (40.3 green plants/100 anthers instead of 43.9 with sucrose), while maltose significantly increased the androgenesis of the recalcitrant genotype Laval-19 (10.8 green plants/100 anthers instead of 5.4 with sucrose). An amino acid x maltose interaction was also observed. Amino acids without maltose increased androgenesis, but the addition of maltose to the amino acid-enriched medium eliminated this positive effect of the amino acids.