Protocols for Micropropagation of Woody Trees and Fruits

CHAPTER 33
MICROPROPAGATION PROTOCOL
FOR MICROSPORE EMBRYOGENESIS
IN OLEA EUROPAEA L.
B. PINTOS 1 , A. MARTIN 2 AND M.A. BUENO 1
1 Lab. Biotecnología Forestal. CIFOR-INIA. Ctra. de la Coruña Km. 7,5. 28040
Madrid. Spain. E-mail: bueno@inia.es
2 Instituto de Agricultura Sostenible.Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas
(CSIC). 14080 Córdoba. Spain
1. INTRODUCTION
Olive tree (Olea europaea L.) has a high economic value. The Mediterranean region
produces about 99% of the olives in the world and almost 2000 cultivars have been
identified and gathered in germplasm collections in various Mediterranean countries.
Spain is the leading olive growing country, with 25% of the world area of olive
groves, which provides for 39 and 35% of the total olive oil and table olive production,
respectively.
The Olive (Olea europaea L.) belongs to the family Oleaceae. The leaves are
opposite. The flowers are borne in racemes which emerge from the axils of the
leaves, and produce large quantities of pollen. The fruit is a drupe. Olive trees grow
very slowly and rarely reach more than 15 m in height, but they may have a lifespan
of hundreds of years. To date, modern molecular technologies in plant breeding have
not been applied extensively in olive, but using biotechnology may provide profitable
results. As has been demonstrated in other crops, biotechnological methods can
improve the efficiency and increase the speed of breeding. Microspore embryogenesis
through in vitro culture is a widely-used method to generate genetic variability by
obtaining microspore-derived embryos and double-haploid plants, with many applications
for plant breeding (Chupeau et al., 1998). Gametic and haploid regenerants
are also very important in breeding because the single set of chromosomes allows
the isolation of mutants and the production of homozygous doubled-haploids,
through chromosome doubling.
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S.M. Jain and H. Häggman (eds.), Protocols for Micropropagation of Woody Trees and Fruits, 361–371.
© 2007 Springer.