65 years of in vitro culture in Poland

This paper is a short review of historical development of the tissue culture method in Poland. Similarly to the rest of the world, in vitro technology in Poland has progressed in many directions simultaneously. Its main fields are closely interconnected by natural sequences of biological processes and integrade one into another. The best results, driven by the prospects of practical applications, have been achieved within the areas of meristem culture and micropropagation of valuable genotypes, somaclonal variation, production of haploids and DH plants, somatic embryogenesis, in vitro culture of embryos and ovules, improvement of plant disease resistance, somatic hybridization and transformation of plants. Due to the fact that in vitro domain is a very broad science the authors are aware that this review might not fully cover all the scientists working with tissue culture and their achievements

Screening of Asparagus officinalis L. seeds for occurence and ploidy of twin embryos

We used germination tests to assess the frequency of polyembryony in 9 asparagus cultivars with a high propensity to produce double embryos with different ploidy levels: Alpha, Andreas, Boonlim, Cipres, Eposs, Helios, Limbras, Ravel and Sartaguda. Twin embryos inside a single seed were found in 3 cultivars: Eposs 2n, Ravel 2n and Sartaguda 2n, at 0.60% frequency (15 seeds with twin embryos out of 2500 seeds). Of 30 obtained seedlings, 14 were separated diploid-diploid twins, 6 were conjoined diploid pairs, 8 were separated diploid-haploid and 2 were diploid-haploid pairs conjoined in the hypocotyl region. Some embryos showed unilateral dominance of one embryo (size and shape). The haploid status of the smallest embryo was confirmed by chromosome number (n=x=10) and flow cytometry (nuclear C DNA amount 1.95 pg). The haploid obtained in this manner possessed enough vegetative vigor to undergo chromosome doubling

Development of new plants from leaves and roots of Atropa belladonna L. in the in vitro culture

Isolated leaves, leaf fragments and fragmented roots of Atropa balladanna were grown in vitro in order to study their morphogenetic potentials. In the presence of 'kinetin and IAA, a great number of shoot buds arose from the leaves and roots. In those cases when cut leaves were implanted a callus arose from the leaves which subsequently gave rise to many buds. In the absence of kinetin and IAA buds were not formed. In the presence of IAA only numerous roots arose from the cut ends of the leafe stalk and from .the fragmented root