Influencia de condiciones de estrés y de reguladores de crecimiento vegetal en la inducción embriogénesis somática en Cattleya maxima Lindl

Abstract

Orchidaceae, the largest vascular plant family in Ecuador, are at risk of extinction due to habitat loss caused by a high rate of deforestation. It was therefore deemed important to establish an efficient way of clonal propagation based on somatic embryogenesis. To this end, in the present study we evaluated the influence of twelve combinations of growth regulators 2,4-D/TDZ and three kinds of stress on free hormone and 0.1 mg/l 2,4-D containing ½ MS medium compared with a control treatment on somatic embryogenesis induction in protocorms of Cattleya maxima, a native Ecuadorian orchid. Protocorms give 42% of embryogenic calli on ½ MS medium, however, this percentage was considerably increased (96%) when protocorms were stressed for 6 hours with 0.3M NaCl and cultured on ½ MS medium supplemented with 0.1 mg/l 2,4-D. With the methodology described in this work we can obtain a high number of somatic embryos improving significantly the clonal propagation of this orchid.