Ovule and embryo culture to obtain hybrids from interspecific incompatible pollinations in chickpea

Many of the wild species of chickpea were not accessible to the improvement of chickpea due to cross incompatibility. In these interspecific incompatible crosses, fertilization takes place but the embryo aborts a few days later. The only way to obtain hybrid plants is by the application of growth regulators to pollinated pistils to prevent initial pod abscission and to save the aborting hybrid embryos by embryo rescue techniques. Although there are a few papers on regeneration from different explants of chickpea, information on embryo rescue techniques is not available. The paper summarises the embryo rescue techniques developed for chickpea, by the use of which hybrid plants between C. arietinum and C. pinnatifidum were produced. The paper also emphasises the effect of genotype to successfully obtain hybrids. The morphology of the hybrid plants resembled the male parent in leaf structure and growth habit. The colour of the flowers produced on the hybrid plant was pale violet, resembling the male parent whose flowers were violet in colour. The flower colour of the female parent was white.