To establish the in vitro conservation of the distinct genotypes of saffron and some wild Crocus collected in the development of our project, we will apply the methodology reported by Piqueras et al. (1999) Agronomie 19: 603-610. Briefly, healthy corms will be selected from the collection and will be used as source of tissues as starting material in two developmental stages: (i) vegetative dormancy previous to sprouting and (ii) vegetative growing; in order to evaluate the impact of the physiological stage of corms in response to in vitro morphogenesis. The saffron micropropagation protocol includes the following steps: Initiation of the culture and explant selection, Multiplication, Multiplication of meristematic nodules in liquid medium (optional), Elongation and rooting, Acclimatization to ex vitro conditions and formation of corms, Control of genetic stability and clonal uniformity of the regenerated material.

Implementation

This task will be carried out by Partner 0 with the assistance and participation of other partners interested in saffron micropropagation such as partners 4 and 12.