What is embryo rescue? How does this method help in crop improvement? State two disadvantages of it.
Embryo rescue is a tissue culture technique where a young, immature embryo is aseptically excised from the developing seed and cultured in vitro on a nutrient medium to enable its survival and maturation into a whole plant.
This method significantly aids crop improvement by overcoming post-zygotic reproductive barriers. It is particularly crucial in wide hybridization (interspecific or intergeneric crosses) where the hybrid embryo often aborts prematurely due to endosperm degeneration or incompatibility between parental genomes. By rescuing these embryos, plant breeders can obtain viable hybrids from crosses that would otherwise fail, introducing desirable traits like disease resistance, stress tolerance, or improved yield from wild relatives into cultivated crops.
Two disadvantages are:
- Technical Difficulty: The technique is highly skilled and labor-intensive, requiring aseptic conditions and precise timing for embryo excision.
- Variability and Low Success Rates: The success rate can be low, and the resulting plants may exhibit somaclonal variation, which might introduce undesirable traits.
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