Journal of Tekirdag Agricultural Faculty, cilt.21, sa.1, ss.15-23, 2024 (ESCI)
Strawberry (Fragaria x ananassa Duch.) which is one of the widely grown berry species in the world has economic and commercial importance. In commercial strawberry varieties, in order to increase yield and quality, it is necessary to obtain starting materials that are resistant/tolerant to biotic and abiotic stress factors. Biotechnological methods have an important place in strawberry breeding studies due to the long and costly process of classical breeding methods, the genetic expansion of seed production, high ploidy level and strong heterozygosity. Haploid plant production is an efficient breeding method that has been successfully applied to most plant species. However, due to the lack of sufficient haploid studies on strawberry and the fact that a specific protocol for this species has not yet been developed the necessary progress has not been made in this regard. In this study, the effectiveness of some factors determine the success in anther culture which has a significant place in obtaining haploid strawberries was investigated. For this reason, first, different sodium hypochlorite doses (NaOCl; 1%, 2%, 3%) and application durations (10, 15, 20 min) were used to determine the appropriate method for sterilisation, then cold pre-treatments (24, 36, 48, 72 hours at +4 °C) and different silver nitrate doses (AgNO3; 10, 20, 30, 40 mg l-1) were employed for callus induction in Festival strawberry variety. At the conclusion of the study it was observed that the lowest contamination rate (1%) was obtained by soaking in 1% sodium hypochlorite solution for 10 minutes. Cold pretreatment of flower buds at +4 °C for 36 hours produced the highest callus induction rate (96%). The evaluation of the effect of AgNO3 application at different doses on the callus induction rate revealed that the highest callus induction (82%) was obtained from 20 mg l-1 AgNO3 dosage. This study showed that anther culture practices in strawberry can be improved by using cold pre-treatment, appropriate sterilization method and silver nitrate addition to the medium.