TY - JOUR
T1 - Seed Maturity and Its In Vitro Initiation of Chilean Endemic Geophyte Alstroemeria pelegrina L.
AU - Guerra, Francesca
AU - Peñaloza, Patricia
AU - Vidal, Alexis
AU - Cautín, Ricardo
AU - Castro, Mónica
N1 - Funding Information:
Funding: This research has been funded by the Propagation Laboratory of the School of Agronomy, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, Chile.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
PY - 2022/5
Y1 - 2022/5
N2 - Alstroemeria pelegrina (A. pelegrina), a Chilean endemic, is considered vulnerable as its natural habitat is currently threatened. The decline in the reproductive capacity of the species due to anthropogenic impacts and climate change has made it imperative to address the problem by developing large-scale propagation methods. The objective of this study was to establish protocols for breaking the dormancy and in vitro germination of A. pelegrina seeds to speed up the germination and seedling production processes. The research began with morphological observations of the reproductive process, followed by in vitro sowing. The results showed that the seeds reached full maturity in 51 days, and physiological maturity in 41 days, at which point the seeds could be harvested for in vitro germination. The mechanical scarification pretreatment improves the in vitro germination rate to 96% and the germination time to 7 days, showing that the species is characterized by physical seed dormancy. On the other hand, if the seed coat incisions are deeper than 0.5 mm, 30% of the potential plants are lost due to embryo damage. The study provides scientific evidence for the feasibility of large-scale in vitro propagation of the species and establishes an efficient method of seedling production.
AB - Alstroemeria pelegrina (A. pelegrina), a Chilean endemic, is considered vulnerable as its natural habitat is currently threatened. The decline in the reproductive capacity of the species due to anthropogenic impacts and climate change has made it imperative to address the problem by developing large-scale propagation methods. The objective of this study was to establish protocols for breaking the dormancy and in vitro germination of A. pelegrina seeds to speed up the germination and seedling production processes. The research began with morphological observations of the reproductive process, followed by in vitro sowing. The results showed that the seeds reached full maturity in 51 days, and physiological maturity in 41 days, at which point the seeds could be harvested for in vitro germination. The mechanical scarification pretreatment improves the in vitro germination rate to 96% and the germination time to 7 days, showing that the species is characterized by physical seed dormancy. On the other hand, if the seed coat incisions are deeper than 0.5 mm, 30% of the potential plants are lost due to embryo damage. The study provides scientific evidence for the feasibility of large-scale in vitro propagation of the species and establishes an efficient method of seedling production.
KW - Alstroemeriaceae
KW - conservation of native flora
KW - in vitro establishment
KW - Los Molles butterfly
KW - physical dormancy
KW - physiological seed maturity
KW - scarification
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85130873881&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3390/horticulturae8050464
DO - 10.3390/horticulturae8050464
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85130873881
VL - 8
JO - Horticulturae
JF - Horticulturae
SN - 2311-7524
IS - 5
M1 - 464
ER -