In an attempt to establish an alternative plant regeneration system for soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merrill] cultivars used in Brazilian breeding programs, ten genotypes were tested for their embryogenic potential. Cotyledons were removed as explants from immature seeds harvested from field-grown plants. After 45 days on induction medium, the number of responding cotyledons and the number of somatic embryos per immature cotyledon were evaluated. The percentage of explants that produced somatic embryos varied from 1 to 70% among cultivars. The average number of somatic embryos produced per cotyledon pair ranged from 0.01 to 10.3 with a mean of 3.4. Suspension cultures were initiated with three Agrobacterium tumefaciens susceptible cultivars. Suspensions were successfully developed from Bragg and IAS5 cultivars. The packed cell volume, in one-month growth, increased 8.1 fold for Bragg and 3.5 fold for IAS5 and the fresh weight increased 6.6 and 2.8 fold, respectively. The cultivars differed for the analysed parameters. All tissue from each cultivar was transferred to the maturation medium and subsequently to the germination medium. The germination frequency was 45.7 and 54.9% for Bragg and IAS5, respectively. Plants were gradually exposed to ambient humidity over one week and then planted in soil. All plants yielded seeds in the greenhouse.
Glycine max; somatic embryogenesis; liquid medium; plant tissue culture
