Evaluation of protoplast viability of Mirabilis jalapa and synthetic seed production

Book excerpt: Mirabilis jalapa a perennial, herbaceous, bushy plant that reaches stature heights of mostly 1 meter, rarely up to 2 meters, in height. It may also be grown as an annual, especially in the temperate zone. The single-seeded fruits are spherical, wrinkled and black upon maturity, having started out greenish-yellow. The stems are thick, full, quadrangular with many ramifications and rooting at the nodes. The posture is often prostrate. A curious aspect of M. jalapa is that flowers with different colors grow simultaneously on the same plant. Additionally, an individual flower can be splashed with different colors. Flower patterns are referred to as sectors (whole sections of flower), flakes (stripes of varying length), and spots. A single flower can be plain yellow, red, magenta, pink, or white, or have a combination of sectors, flakes, and spots. Furthermore, different combinations of flowers and patterns can occur on. Artificial seeds are the living seed-like structure which are made experimentally by a technique where somatic embryoids derived from plant tissue culture are encapsulated by a hydrogel and such encapsulated embryoids behave like true seeds if grown in soil and can be used as a substitute of natural seeds. different flowers of the same plant. The viability of the artificial seeds depend on several factors related to conditions of storing the seeds and parts of the flower from which the explant is obtained. The protoplast is prepared from several parts like flower, leaf, stem, root, buds and meristem. These explants are grown in different concentrations of sucrose like 5%, 10%, 15%, 20%, 25%, 30%, 35%, 40%, 45%, 50%. The production of synthetic seeds are also studied in this experiment.