Effect of inoculation density on maturation of somatic embryos of plantain cv.</font></b> </font><font size="3" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>`FHIA-21' (<i>Musa </i>AAAB)

Abstract

The establishment of conditions of culture is essential to regulate of efficient way the regeneration of plantain plants cv. `FHIA-21' by somatic embryogenesis. It is for that reason that this investigation had like objective to determine the effect of the density of inoculation on maturation of somatic embryos. For the study were added 0.2, 0.4 and 0.6 grams of somatic embryos on 60 ml of culture means maturation semisolid. The evaluations were realized to the 30 days of culture with the analysis of the morphologic characteristics of the embryos, the determination of the fresh mass (g) and presence of embryos with exhibition of apical shoot. Later, the number of germinated embryos was determined and a morphologic characterization of its germination was realized. The results showed the influence of the density of inoculation in the increase of the fresh mass and in the presence of embryos with exhibition of apical shoot. Nevertheless, significant differences with respect to the total of germinated embryos did not appear, the values oscillated between 8.4 and 11.2 by bottle of culture. In spite of it, one better germination was evident when the 0.4 embryos were worked to gMF, during the phase of maturation. From the embryos with complete and partial germination plants were developed to the 25 and 35 days of culture, respectively, during the phase of growth. These plants were characterized to have a height between 3.5 and 4.0cm, more than three open leaves and a system to radical developed. Aspects that favoured a high survival during the phase of acclimatization in green house. Key words: somatic embryogenesis, fresh mass, germination, morphologic