Brian,

You can find some information on that topic in the book titled "In Vitro Plant Breeding". Use Amazon's Search Inside! feature and search for the keyword "embryo" and on the second page of the hit list, click on Page 64 to start reading the section on Embryo Culture.

After you read that page, click on one of the triangle pointers in the right-hand margin of that page to go to the next page. After you have read page 65, click on a pointer again to go to page 66.

Page 66 has no pointers, so click on the Red "Go" button to rebuild the embryo hit list and select Page 3 of the list to click on Page 67.

That will give you an introduction to the subject.

MM

Thanks MM. I've tried to source the info via your link and description, but it looks like I have to buy the book. Can't see another way of getting that info. I'll try again tomorrow night.

Thanks again for the reply. Whatever I find out I'll let others know.
Looking forward to yet another direction in hybridizing, Brian Kerr.

Brian,

I think anybody should be able to use Amazon's Search Inside! feature. Underneath the picture of the book cover (which appears in the upper left-hand corner of Amazon's product page), you should see two underlined text links. The first one says "Share your own customer images" and immediately below that is a second link, "Search inside this book", which is the link you should click on. You should also be able to click almost anywhere on the cover of the book.

MM

Brian,

There are several books on tissue culture that give more details on zygotic embryo culture than the In Vitro Plant Breeding book that I referenced. I mentioned it first because it is introductory, and I happen to have a copy of it. I think "zygotic embryo culture" is the technical term for the subject of your inquiry.

Many of the books in this subject area are relatively expensive, so you will benefit from learning to use Amazon's Search Inside! feature.

You can find more detail in the book, Introduction to Plant Tissue Culture by M. K. Razdan, in Chapter 11 (beginning on page 128) titled "Zygotic Embryo Culture".

Apparently you can't link directly to specific pages within a book. At least, I don't know how to do it. But this link, Search Inside! Introduction to Plant Tissue Culture should get you inside where you can enter the search string "129" in the Search box and press the red Go button to get a list of hits for that string. At the top of the list is hit 1. "on page 129" and clicking on that will link you to page 129, which is the second page in Chapter 11. Just use the left arrow in the margin of page 129 to go to the beginning of Chapter 11 on what would be page 128 if it had a page number, which it doesn't. At $49.50, that book is fairly affordable, but it is temporarily out of stock at Amazon.

Another good book, Plant Tissue Culture: Theory and Practice by Bhojwani and Razdan costs $370, so there is motivation to use Amazon's Read Inside on it. Once you get into the Read Inside your target is Chapter 11, titled Zygotic Embryo Culture, beginning on page 297. Entering "297" in the Search box is the quickest way to find a link to that page, because it does have a page number.

There are a bunch of good books on tissue culture, and tissue culture techniques can be used to culture embryos that otherwise wouldn't develop into viable seeds. That makes it possible to grow interspecific and even intergeneric hybrids that wouldn't grow without using zygotic embryo culture techniques.

You might be interested in the Kitchen Culture Kits, Inc. website. Dr. Carol M. Stiff is the proprietor, and she might be able to put together a kit specifically adapted to your zygotic embryo culture needs.

MM

Brian,

Another thing. Once you do get into the Amazon Search Inside! and start reading pages, you may find that some of them are in a rather small font. You can deal with that problem by noticing that, in the AmazonOnlineReader bar, there is a View menu that lets you Zoom In or Zoom Out and select or de-select the Left Panels.

These Search Inside pages are scans of actual book pages and, as such, they are simply images. That means you won't be able to Select or Copy any of the text.

MM

Thanks MM. I look forward to an exciting read and hopefully a breakthrough cross as a result.

Your effort to source this info is greatly appreciated. I'll get back to you after digesting the info tomorrow.
Cheers, Brian.

Hey Everyone,

This looks like a good thread. I recently did some embryo rescue with Lily as a lab in one of my courses. The methodology is pretty straight forward and there are some good scientific, reviewed journal articles available online (search 'embryo resuce techniques' on google scholar. It is important to note that aseptic conditions are crucial for success and that knowing when to rescue your embryos before they abort is essential. Other conditions like nutrient media, temperature, and light are different for different crosses and one should check the literature for insight on guidelines for this. If you have access to a university database for scientific journals, i'd recommend that. But I can see if I find any information specific to hibiscus

Hi MDClark, Sorry for not replying sooner. Lots happening here. Anything found that seems relevant? I am very interested in knowing as much as possible so as I can work on it in my retirement.
Thanks for your interest.
Kind Regards, Brian.