Herbicide-tolerant tobacco mutants selected <i>in situ</i> and recovered via regeneration from cell culture

Abstract

SUMMARY The herbicides Bentazone and Phenmedipharm kill the leaves of intact tobacco plants but do not affect callus cultures. Tolerant mutants were isolated by treating leaves of previously γ-irradiated haploid plants with herbicide then excising and culturing the green herbicide-resistant cell clones on the otherwise yellowed leaves. Among plants subsequently regenerated were a total of ten stable independently isolated mutants. Sexual crosses show these ten represent four Bentazone and two Phenmedipharm loci; all mutants were recessive to wild type.