Clonal propagation through direct somatic embriogenesis in pistachio

ABSTRACT CLONAL PROPAGATION THROUGH DIRECT SOMATIC EMBRIOGENESIS IN PISTACHIO BALO?LU, Ülkü M. Sc. in Biology. Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Mehmet ÖZASLAN May 2003, 53 pages Our country is on the 'gene center' in the world for Pistachio. For this reason, especially, the Pistachio was grown in the Region of Southeastern Anatolia for many years and is the most important for the economy of this region. Pistacia vera L., is a fruit which has high in fat/protein ratio. It has a high quality nutrition value. Due to heterozygosity only vegetative propagation methods give promising results in propagation of Pistachio trees. Different grafting and budding methods must be employed since vegetative propagation methods such as cutting and layering cannot be used due to difficulties in rooting. However this method is slow and expensive thereby limiting the number of propagation materials. For this reason, in intensive clonal propagation of Pistachio nut rootstocks and varietes the possibilities of application of tissue culture methods are investigated. Together with this, the phenolic compounds exist in Pistacia vera L. effects the applicability of tissue culture tecniques in negative way. In this study, investigations were done for the first time on obstructing of phenolic compounds in vitro by using 'nurse culture' techniques in Pistacia vera L ev Siirt. For this aim fertilized and ovules and shoot meristems were used. Direct somatic embriogenesis at the highest ratio was obtained from the fertilized embryos which was taken at the growing priod of second half of 2002 July. It was pointed out that calli of Nicotiana tabacum ev Samsun obstructed phenolic compounds. Key words: Tissue culture, Pistachio, nurse culture, phenolic compounds u