Selection for Early Flowering, Temperature and Salt Tolerance of Zantedeschia aethiopica ‘Green Goddess’

Abstract

Zantedeschia, an important cut flower that shows high variability in plant height,flowering period and other characteristics when grown from seeds. Availability of variability, however, provides opportunity for the selection for such characteristics as early flowering, temperature or salt tolerance. In-vitro germination may be utilized in the selection for early germination under unfavourable conditions and selected seedlings rapidly multiplied by multiple shoot formation. This study described the selection procedures using early germinating seeds of Zantedeschia ‘Green Goddess’ on their flowering time, temperature and salt tolerance. The seeds were sown on invitro Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium at 20°C and 16h light; early germinating seeds transferred singly to new medium. For temperature tolerance, seeds were sown on media maintained at 10, 15 and 20°C. For salt tolerance, seeds were sown on medium containing 0, 40, 80, 120, 160 and 200 mmol/L NaCl. The selected seedlings were then multiplied in-vitro to develop clones, which were tested for flowering, temperature tolerance and salt tolerance against clones which germinated later. The results showed that clones, which were selected from early-germinated seedlings, grew faster, flowered earlier and produced more flowers than clones that germinated later. Early germinated seedlings at low temperatures achieved greater growth at lower night temperatures than those germinated at high temperatures. Clones selected after germination at higher levels of sodium chloride (NaCl) attained greater growth on media containing salt than those that germinated on salt free medium.