Proceedings of the XLVII Italian Society of Agricultural Genetics - SIGA Annual Congress

Verona, Italy - 24/27 September, 2003

ISBN 88-900622-4-X

Poster Abstract - 2.03

MICROPROPAGATION OF GLOBE ARTICHOKE (CYNARA SCOLYMUS L.) FOR BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION AND EXPLOITATION

G. ANCORA, L. CUOZZO, R. TAVAZZA

ENEA, UTS BIOTEC, C.R. Casaccia, C.P. 2400, Rome, Italy

globe artichoke, micropropagation,biodiversity

In the last years the production of in vitro propagated material of globe artichoke has given rise to the distribution to the farmers of millions of plantlets of clone “C3” of the cultivar “Romanesco”, which is preferred for his earliness and, thus, the greater income in respect to the previous cultivated populations. However, the use of this clone by most farmers has determined a drastic reduction of the existing variability.

In the framework of a project financed by the Ministry of University and Research aimed at the exploitation of ecotypes of different plant species a search of ecotypes of “Romanesco” cultivars of globe artichoke has been undertaken in order to rescue and characterise ecotypes present in the Lazio region.

To this purpose, from plants present in small fields in the north and in the south of the Roman area, offshoots have been collected and utilised to isolate shoot apices for in vitro culture and propagation.

Different culture conditions have been developed for the different phases of in vitro culture. In particular, a new basal medium has been developed in which, in respect to MS medium, NH₄NO₃ has been reduced to 800 mg/l, while 1000 mg/l Ca(NO₃)2 x 4H₂O have been added.

For shoot development the basal medium has been supplemented with 0.8 mg/l BAP and 0.2 mg/l IBA, while for proliferation the basal medium containing 2 mg/l kinetin and 0.2 mg/l IBA was used.

Under this conditions, generally, a satisfactory rate of shoot proliferation was obtained accompanied by a good shoot quality, even though differences in the rate of proliferation was observed among the different clones, possibly due to their genetic diversity. To this respect experiments to improve the proliferation of some low proliferating clones are undergoing.

The shoots, 4-5 cm in length, rooted on a medium containing 10 mg/l IAA for a week followed by the transfer on hormon-free medium.

Plantlets of different clones (about 25) were successfully transferred in soil and will be utilised for the morphological and productive analysis.

This work was supported by a grant from the Ministry of University and Research (MIUR), Settore Agrobiotecnologie, “Progetto SCRIGNO.