Abstract

Tissue culture techniques offer important approaches about sunflower breeding and germplasm conservation. The available data on the subject in Turkey was reviewed in order to encourage the researchers to study on tissue culture of sunflower. In vitro studies on sunflower in Turkey started in the first half of the 90s. A large number of in vitro culture studies on sunflower using anthers, hypocotyls, cotyledons, petioles of cotyledon, shoot-tips, mature embryos, immature embryos, leaves, petioles, immature cotyledons and microspores as different explants have been published. Microspore culture, anther culture, embryo culture, slow growth storage, micropropagation and gene transfer with Agrobacterium were also used in these culture studies. Although these studies formed an important scientific knowledge about sunflower tissue culture in the country, it is still not sufficient. Therefore, there is an urgent need to make more in vitro studies on sunflower which is an important agricultural plant for Turkey. The transfer of the results of these studies to agricultural applications is also essential from a sectoral standpoint.