Protocols for Micropropagation of Woody Trees and Fruits

CHAPTER 22
MICROPROPAGATION OF MATURE TREES
OF ULMUS GLABRA, ULMUS MINOR
AND ULMUS LAEVIS
J. MALÁ 1 , M. CVIKROVÁ 2 AND V. CHALUPA 1
1 Forestry and Game Management Research Institute, CZ-15604
Praha 5, Zbraslav-Strnady, Czech Republic
2 Institute of Experimental Botany, Academy of Sciences of the Czech
Republic, Rozvojová 135, CZ-16502 Praha 6, Czech Republic
1. INTRODUCTION
About 40 species of elms (Ulmus spp.) occur throughout the temperate regions of
the Northern Hemisphere. Elm trees are highly valued for their cold tolerance, their
landscape value as well as for their timber. Unfortunately, in recent decades the
fungal vascular wilt disease caused by the vascular wilt fungus Ophiostoma ulmi and
more recently by highly aggressive O. novo-ulmi (Et-Touil et al., 1999), has devastated
the elm populations of Europe, North America and central Asia. This has lead, in
both Europe and North America, to the beginning of breeding programmes in an
attempt to produce resistant individuals. However, production of disease resistant
elm trees via conventional breeding has met with limited success owing to the long
time scales involved in breeding programmes and difficulties in obtaining locally
climatically adapted trees. Some resistant material has recently been released in
North America and the Netherlands for trial plantings (Gartland et al., 2001).
The attention is now being focused on biotechnology with the goal of genetic
improvement through the transfer of foreign genes into the genome of elm cells
(Fenning et al., 1996). However, this strategy can only be initiated after the establishment
of efficient protocols for plant regeneration from cells and tissues of elm trees.
Various micropropagation systems have been reported for a range of elm species
and hybrids (Chalupa, 1994; Gartland et al., 2000; Mala, 2000; Biroscikova et al.,
2004). Protocols of this type have been already developed from differentiated
explants (Fenning et al., 1993), from callus and suspension cultures (Karnosky et al.,
1982).Another way that could play an important role in current elm improvement
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S.M. Jain and H. Häggman (eds.), Protocols for Micropropagation of Woody Trees and Fruits, 237–246.
© 2007 Springer.