Somatic embryogenesis of oil palm (Elaeis guineensis Jacq.) for synthetic seed production

Somatic embryogenesis of oil palm in liquid medium has been developed since 1999 by Touchet et al. However, synthetic seed production of oil palm has not been performed. Synthetic seed is useful for long time storage and low cost delivery to far away plantation. In the present study, methods from somatic embryogenesis up to synthetic seed production were performed. Friable embryogenic callus was induced, embryogenic cell suspension was initiated, development and maturation of somatic embryo were conducted. The maturation of somatic embryos were performed in two step. First step was inducing the accumulation of storage protein by arginine and glutamine. Second step was inducing dessication tolerance by Abscisic acid. After the somatic embryos maturing, they were dessicated for 2 hours on sterilized filter paper. Then, dessicated somatic embryo were mixed in 3% alginate solution and dropped one by one to 100 mM CaCl2 solution to form beads of synthetic seeds. The synthetic seeds were then germinated on germination medium containing gibberelic acid. 70% of synthetic seeds were germinated after one month on germination media.