improved, Efficient and Reliable Plant Regeneration Protocol for a Recalcitrant Black Rice

Abstract

Rice tissue culture is very well estab-lished for the Indica and Japonica varieties in white rice. Black rice is recalcitrant for the re-generation due to their pigment. Since, there is a limited genetic transformation protocol avail-able for the black rice so crop improvement ef-forts have not made so much progress. Here, we have developed an improved, efficient and reliable regeneration protocol for Chakhao amu-bi cultivar of black rice using mature seeds as an explant and through somatic embryogenesis pathway. The effects of growth regulators, gell-ing agent, and photoperiod, and various stages of complete protocol is well established. The re-generation protocol developed in this study will be well suited for introducing the agronomical important genes and functional genomic studies in black rice.