V. Bozhanova1*, Horst Lorz

1Field Crops Institute, 6200 Chirpan, Bulgaria
2Biocenter Klein-Flottbek, AMP II, University of Hamburg, D-22609 Hamburg, Germany

Abstract. A microspore culture technique is used to produce homozygous lines of agronomic interest in a single generation. Several factors affecting the efficiency of in vitro sporophytic development of durum wheat microspores such as genotype, stress preatreatment, density and co-cultivation of isolated microspore and induction medium were studied in order to develop a protocol for dihaploid plants production. Strong genotype dependence in in vitro response and callus/embryoid capacity was observed. Cultivated microspores developed into macrostructures only after cold pretreatment of the collected spikes at +4°C for 4 weeks. The best results were achieved at density 10000 microspores/mlonthemod. Chu Medium (Chu et al., 1990) + 0.5mg/lBAP + 0.5mg/l2,4D + 90g/l maltosa with ovaries co-cultivation. A lot of macrostructures developed to embryoids, but only a few produced poorly-developed shoots–most of them were albinos.