Determination of Pollen Viability and Germination of Solanum melongena ve Solanum torvum and Obtaining Plants from Solanum melongena x Solanum torvum Hybrids Using in vitro Techniques

The most important factors those are limiting the production of eggplant in Turkey and the world are soil borne fungal diseases and pests. Fusarium and Verticillium as fungal diseases and nematodes as pests cause significant yield losses. Those pathogens cause significant yield losses both in open field and greenhouse cultivation. The most efficient way to avoid those diseases is using resistant varieties or rootstocks. Although resistant genes to all these three pathogenes do not exist in eggplant cultivars, wild eggplant, Solanum torvum Sw can contain them. . However interspecific crosses cannot be achieved because of the sexual incompatibility between Solanum torvum and Solanum melongena. Thus resistant genes cannot be transferred by classical breeding. For this purpose, in order to understand the reasons of the failure in interspecific crosses, polen viability and germination percentage should be determined as a priority. For this purpose, pollen viability and germination levels of Aydin siyahi and Kemer eggplant cultivars and one wild form (Solanum torvum) were determined. Pollen viability and polen germination percentage were determined by TTC and ‘agar in Petri’ methods, respectively. In vitro reciprocal crosses were made between Kemer and Aydin Siyahi cultivars in order to obtain hybrids. In this study, in vitro embryo rescue technique was used in 25, 30 and 35 days after pollination. The embryo number obtained and plants regenerated were recorded.