Abstract:
Zantedeschia, an important cut flower that shows high variability in plant height,flowering period and other characteristics when grown from seeds. Availability
of variability, however, provides opportunity for the selection for such characteristics
as early flowering, temperature or salt tolerance. In-vitro germination may be utilized
in the selection for early germination under unfavourable conditions and selected
seedlings rapidly multiplied by multiple shoot formation. This study described the
selection procedures using early germinating seeds of Zantedeschia ‘Green Goddess’
on their flowering time, temperature and salt tolerance. The seeds were sown on invitro
Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium at 20°C and 16h light; early germinating
seeds transferred singly to new medium. For temperature tolerance, seeds were sown
on media maintained at 10, 15 and 20°C. For salt tolerance, seeds were sown on
medium containing 0, 40, 80, 120, 160 and 200 mmol/L NaCl. The selected seedlings
were then multiplied in-vitro to develop clones, which were tested for flowering,
temperature tolerance and salt tolerance against clones which germinated later. The
results showed that clones, which were selected from early-germinated seedlings, grew
faster, flowered earlier and produced more flowers than clones that germinated later.
Early germinated seedlings at low temperatures achieved greater growth at lower
night temperatures than those germinated at high temperatures. Clones selected after
germination at higher levels of sodium chloride (NaCl) attained greater growth on
media containing salt than those that germinated on salt free medium.
