dc.description.abstract | Xiem Red Dwarf is considered as one of the new and important coconut varieties, which
offers many socio-economic and environmental benefits in Vietnam. Embryo culture
technique is now used to propagate and conserve this variety. Surface sterilization is one of
most crucial parts in plant tissue culture. Sodium hypochlorite is used as a conventional
disinfectant coupled with ethanol in various research; however, calcium hypochlorite is
exerted in the same way in other researches. Calcium hypochlorite has been applied in
different fields such as microbiology, cell reprogramming, and so on due to its long storage
life and low risk for tissue culturists. In this study, zygotic embryos isolated from the mature
Xiem Red Dwarf fruits (10 to 12 months post pollination) are used as plant materials and
sterilized by 0.5% (w/v) of sodium hypochlorite and 0.5% (w/v) of calcium hypochlorite with
70%(v/v) of ethanol. Data showed that the effect of calcium hypochlorite is as good as
sodium hypochlorite in terms of surface sterilization and germination rate of coconut zygotic
embryo. This result suggests that calcium hypochlorite could be used as an alternative
disinfectant in the surface sterilization protocol of coconut embryo. In addition, data
indicated that ethanol has the negative effect on the subsequent growth of coconut plantlets
due to its oxidative and inhibitory characteristics that leads to a decrease in shoot length
and root length. So it is recommended that ethanol should be removed from surface
sterilization protocol for coconut embryo culture. The final experiment assessing effect of
different concentrations of calcium hypochlorite on the growth of in vitro seedling showed
that 0.5% of calcium hypochlorite is the optimal concentration. Higher concentrations of
calcium hypochlorite (3 and 6%) led to a signigicant reduction in the seedling growth. In
summary, it is evident that calcium hypochlorite can be effectively used to aseptically
prepare coconut embryo explant and it can also support in vitro growth of seedlings. This
study also suggests that ethanol should be excluded from the surface sterilization protocol
used for coconut embryo explant. | en_US |