Cassava Breeding by Unconventional Method Using Periclinal Chimera

Abstract

Manihot glaziovii Muell is a wild cassava species native to Brazil and known as a solid source of resistance to cassava mosaic and brown streak mosaic, the most divesting diseases now of cassava in East, central Africa and south east Asia. It is a source of resistance to meadow bug too. Classical method of hybridization with wild species M. glaziovii , is very much troubling and for this reason were neglected by concerned breeders. We present here an efficient and very rapid alternative technique which is synthesizing periclinal chimera from M . gl a ziovii or with its interspecific hybrid. It enabled obtaining hybrids during few months compared to several years in traditional sexual hybridization. Somatic hybridization was confirmed by morphological marker genes of winged fruits having white line. Obtained periclinal chimera enabled establishing varieties expected to have combined favored characters of the two parents. In addition it may exhibit hybrid vigor in relation to higher productivity as other periclinal chimera did in last cases.