Synthetic seeds as an application of mass production of somatic embryos

Production of encapsulatable unit, scale-up of the production system, and encapsulation technologies were developed as an integrated technology for transplant production using somatic embryos of celery and carrot. Encapsulatable units, somatic embryos improved in their quality for encapsulation, showed 80% conversion without encapsulation and any nutrient supply on a nursery medium in a greenhouse. The high conversion ability was also shown by carrot encapsulatable unit produced with a newly developed 8-liter culture jar, where 5.09×10⁵ torpedo stage embryos were produced and 4.10×10⁴ encapsulatable units were obtained from them.A novel self-breaking gel beads and sustained release microcapsule as an artificial endosperm were developed for the encapsulation of carrot embryos. Also a whole production system for synthetic seed was developed with which 80 thousand beads could be produced per day. The encapsulated carrot embryos showed 52% conversion frequency after sowing on a humid soil in greenhouse.Abbreviations BA benzyladenine - GA gibberellic acid - MC microcapsule