Journal of Biotechnology & Biomaterials
Open Access

Abstract

Oil palm accounts for 30% of world oil production and is the largest vegetable oil traded. Production of palm oil from a unit area is 7-10 times more than that of any other oil seed crops. Apart from the numerous edible and non edible uses of palm oil and palm kernel oil this crop is gaining importance as a potential biofuel. Tissue culture of oil palm is of great significance for both multiplications of elite palm and as a means for genetic transformation. We report here an improvement of the already reported protocol for direct embryogenesis. Immature fruits were collected after 120 days of pollination (DOP) from 5 different palms derived from Deli X Ghana crosses. The embryos were excised and cultured in Y3 media with 2, 4-D (25 mg/l), Picloram (12 mg/l), 2, 4, 5-T (4 mg/l), 6-benzyl amino purine (2 mg/l). The response was seen as swelling of the embryos and the globular embryo formation from the cut ends of the embryos. Embryos from all the palms showed direct embryogenesis within a period of one month. After two to three sub-cultures the embryos started forming plantlets. The percentages of response obtained, the number of somatic embryos obtained and the process of plant regeneration is reported in this paper. Using this protocol we could obtain the plant regeneration within a period of 12-15 months.

Biography

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