Fruit Organ Cultures

The culture of fruit tissues as whole organs or isolated tissue sections has been conducted with various species (
1
). Whole, isolated ovaries have been successfully cultured to give rise to mature fruits (e.g., strawberry). Typically, however, when an isolated portion of the fruit tissue is introduced into a sterile environment, it immediately loses structural integrity and degenerates into a rapidly dividing callus mass (
2
). Loss of structural integrity is correspondingly associated with an alteration of physiology that is subsequently reflected in the production of an altered metabolism. Therefore, a meaningful study of fruit development using callus derived from fruit tissues is often not possible. Recently, we studied the parameters involved in the maintenance of citrus fruit tissue integrity (
2
). In this paper, the culture of isolated fruit tissues, as well as half and whole fruit culture, is demonstrated using the lemon fruit (Fig. 1 –3 ).