Breeding of citrus crops in Russia has been carried out at the Federal Research Center Subtropical Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences since 1994. As a rule, seeds from distant crosses of Citrus reticulaia Blau. var unchlu (mandarin) contain nucellar embryos and, rarely, a weak zygotic one. Nucellar seedlings are of great importance in breeding aimed at developing early-ripening varieties with high-quality fruits. When multi-embryonic seeds germinate in situ, one or two embryos usually develop, while the rest die due to lack of nutrients. In such a case, it is possible to save the embryos in vitro culture. Hybrid mandarin seeds obtained from 7 crossing combinations (C. reticulata 01-04 × 3252; C. reticulata Solnecbury × pollen mixture; C. reticulata 98-9 × pollen mixture; C. reticulata 202-5 × pollen mixture; C. reticulata 204-1 × C. medica; C. reticulata 2025 × C. limon New Zealand; C. reticulata 99-04 × C. medica) were introduced into sterile culture. The aim of the study was to develop a sterilization protocol, introduce seeds from distant crossing combinations into in vitro culture, and induce the growth of nucellar seedlings. The sterilization option (Domestos gel (5 min), 96% ethyl alcohol and fruit burning) showed a result with a higher yield of sterile culture — 96%. Contamination in the options was relatively low and varied from 4,0 to 16,7%. The percentage of seed germination on the Murashige and Skoog medium + 6-BAP (1,0 mg/l) + mesoinositol 100 (mg/l) was 63,1—87,2%. The highest seed germination was noted in the combination 98-9 × pollen mixture (87,2%). On average, 3—4 full-fledged nucellar seedlings without noticeable anomalies were obtained from 1 seed.
Gvasaliya et al. (Wed,) studied this question.