The applications of somaclonal variation on germplasm improvement of turfgrasses

Somaclonal variation has been one of the hot topics in turfgrass breeding. The present paper reviewed the domestic and foreign researches about the applications of somaclonal variation on several main turfgrasses germplasm innovations and summarized the technologies of embryogenic callus induction and the high frequency plantlets regeneration. The present review focused on the directed mutagenesis from the incubation and selection under stressed conditions such as cold, salt and heat, the non-directed mutagenesis from the combination of in vitro culture and ray irradiation, and the molecular technologies including marker to identify the regenerations. In addition, this review also discussed the problems of somaclonal variation applied on turfgrass resistant breeding which included low variation frequency, unsatisfied traits improvement, incomplete mutants detection and uncertain variation mechanism. Finally, the future research directions were discussed and put forward.