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Nucellus Culture - Nucellus from pollinated flowers can also be used for micropropagation, particularly in cases where adventive embryos develop from nucellar cells (e.g. Citrus). It can be grown on casein hydrolysate supplemented White's medium, giving a callus.

The callus may then give rise to pseudobulbils, differentiating into embryoids, which can eventually develop into seedlings. Nucellus from unfertilized ovules may also develop embryoids, when grown under suitable culture conditions. These embryoids can be excised and grown on medium supplemented with GA3, and plantlets can be obtained.

The seedlings obtained from the nucellar tissue are of parental type and thus may be important for maintaining purity of horticultural stocks. In Citrus, these may be better than those obtained from cuttings due to following reasons:

(i) nucellar seedlings have tap root, while those from cuttings have lateral roots;

(ii) the vigour lost due to repeated propagation by cuttings is restored in nucellar seedlings,

(iii) nucellar seedlings are disease free