Efecto de la posición del brote floral masculino sobre la formación de callos y establecimiento de suspensiones celulares embriogénicas de plátano cv. 'FHIA-21' (Musa AAAB).

The somatic embryogenesis response is close linked with the development phase of the explant donor plant. Therefore, the objective of this work was to determine the effect of male flower position in the plant on the embryogenic responses in plantain cv. 'FHIA-21' (Musa AAAB). In this study male flower were collected at 0, 10, 20 and 30 cm from the last female flower. After 20 weeks on culture, the number of callus with somatic structures was evaluated. Thereafter, the effect of the callus morphology in the establishment of embryogenic cell suspensions was assessed. The results showed that the development phase of immature male flower (measured by the distance to the last female flower) was an important factor on the embryogenic callus induction. The best response on embryogenic callus formation (8.77%) was obtained with explants collected just after the last female flower (0 cm). Although, it was possible to assess that 85.0% of the callus composed by pro-embryogenic masses and somatic embryos in the early stage of its ontogeny development, resulted in embryogenic cell suspensions with the major volume of settled cell aggregated. As a result, it was possible to conclude that the age of the male flower play an important role on the somatic embryogenic process in plantain cv. 'FHIA-21'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]