Morphological changes in colchicine--treated Pelargonium × hortorum L.H. Bailey greenhouse plants

Abstract

Polyploids were effectively pre-selected in colchicine-treated plants of the desirable brown-leaved cultivar Black Velvet Scarlet F1 of the species Pelargonium × hortorum L.H. Bailey to obtain the basic breeding material for creating new brown-leaved tetraploid cultivars. The green-leaved cultivar Gizela F1 was used for comparison of quantity and quality of response to colchicine treatments. Water solutions of colchicine in the range from 0.1% to 2.5% induced polyploidy in seedlings with treatments repeated each day for 2, 3, 5 or 7 days. Polyploid plants were pre-selected according to their morphological changes and stomata length and density and verified using flow cytometry. Some morphological changes (leaf coloration, flower shapes) in colchiploids differed between the genotypes, others were the same in both cultivars (loss of coloration in mixoploids, failure of blooming).

Keywords

• pelargonium × hortorum
• colchicine
• induced polyploidy
• tetraploidy
• plant breeding