Comparison between two methods of establishment of embryogenic cell suspensions in banana cv. ‘Grande naine’ (<em>Musa</em> AAA)

Abstract

Comparison of two methods for the establishment of embryogenic cell suspensions obtained from the culture of male flower directly in liquid culture medium and embryogenic callus of banana cv. ‘Grande naine’ (Musa AAA) was studied in this work. Establishment of homogeneous embriogenic cell suspensions from the culture of both explants in liquid medium was achieved though floral bud range eight showed the best results. Differences in the growing of cell suspension, somatic embryos formation and germination was not observed when the suspensions were compared. Nevertheless the methodology proposed in this work was faster than the ‘callus’ methodology and percentage of establishment was higher. Key words: callus, liquid culture medium, somatic embryos