Embryo Rescue
The term ‘embryo rescue’ is used for embryo culture, ovule culture and ovary culture, since in each case the objective is to rescue the embryo. During distant hybridization, often the embryo aborts at an early stage of development, so that no mature seed can be obtained. This problem can be overcome, if young hybrid embryos are excised and cultured on a synthetic medium. These cultured embryos can directly develop into young seedlings. When embryos can not be easily excised, whole ovules can be cultured and similarly when ovule is also too small to be removed, whole ovaries may be cultured. These techniques of embryo culture, ovule culture and ovary culture are briefly described in this section.