ISSN 1068-3674, Russian Agricultural Sciences, 2011, Vol. 37, No. 2, pp. 120–125. © Allerton Press, Inc., 2011. 120 1 The International Plant Genetic Resources Insti- tute (IPGRI) forage working group has ascribed Vicia sp. as a high priority for collection, conservation and forage development because of their current economic value and potential for future utilization [5, 11, 17]. Recently ICARDA has recommended the cultivation of annual legume of vetch group specially bitter vetch (Vicia ervilia L.) in fallow lands for right exploitation of pastures rectify feed shortage at marginal dry lands areas, adaptability to unfavorable environments with cold and low rainfall areas [1, 3, 12, 17], the Mediter- ranean, West Asia, and North Africa regions [1, 2, 6, 17, 18, 22]. But over the last 20 years, the area of bitter vetch has been reduced dramatically to just a few thou- sand hectares. Formerly it was used to feed oxen, but mechanization has diminished this issue substantially [13]. This species is grown in fall season, before the planting of the second crops [8, 23, 24] or it can be rotated with cereal grains such as reducing soil nitro- gen depletion and breaking the pest and disease cycles [7, 3, 10, 16]. Bitter vetch has different usages in pas- tures and marginal soils furthermore more it has sig- nificant role on fertility and soil protection as a protein 1 The article is published in the original. source for poultries and animals. Genetic engineering of crop plants relies on the development of efficient methods for regeneration of viable shoots from cul- tured tissues. Shoot regeneration has been established from immature cotyledons and embryo axes of Hun- garian vetch supplemented various concentration of 6- benzylaminopurine (BA) and α-naphthaleneacetic acid (NAA) [19]. Callus development has been observed from Vicia narbonensis L. which was supple- mented with low concentrations of picloram and BAP [4]. Some reports on shoot regeneration from imma- ture cotyledons are available. The highest frequency of shoot regeneration and the highest number of shoots per explant were determined from various concentra- tions of TDZ [9] This study was conducted to develop a protocol for efficient shoot and plant regeneration from seedling explants and immature cotyledons of bitter vetch (Vicia ervilia L.) and compare the regener- ation capacity of the most commonly used explants: cotyledon and hypocotyls in high and low levels of hormonal concentrations and study the impact of hor- monal shock on improving callus induction and also plant regeneration from in vitro culture of Iranian genotypes. PLANT INDUSTRY Callus Induction and Plant Regeneration from an Ancient and Forgotten Crop Plant Vicia ervilia L. (WILLD) 1 F. Etedali a , B. Baghban Kohnehrouz a , A. Motallebi-Azar b , F. Khazaei c , A. Gholizadeh d , and V. Razavi Ahari c a All-Faculty of Agriculture, University of Tabriz, 51666 Tabriz, IRAN b Department of Horticultural Sciences, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Tabriz, 51666 Tabriz, IRAN c All-Seed and plant certification and registration institute, Karaj, Tehran, IRAN d Research Centre in fundamental Sciences of University of Tabriz, 51666 Tabriz, IRAN e-mail: anita_19752002@yahoo.com, bahramrouz@yahoo.com Abstract—Recently ICARDA has recommended the cultivation of annual legume of vetch group especially bitter vetch (Vicia ervilia L.) in fallow lands for right exploitation of pastures and rectifies feed shortage at marginal dry lands areas. To reach this aim a research was carried out in Tabriz university of IRAN. At this research bitter vetch plants and embryo axis were grown and developed under some levels of hormonal con- centrations (high and low) on MS medium containing BAP and NAA (0, 0.1, 1, 20 and 40 mg/l). After sta- tistical comparison, hormonal combination of 5 mg/l of BAP with 20 mg/l NAA and without NAA was con- sidered as the best treatment for callus induction and maintenance. Then some callus and embryonic axis were transferred on regeneration medium containing (NAA 0.1 mg/l, BAP 0.2 mg/l), (NAA 2 mg/l + BAP 0.2 mg/l), (NAA 1 mg/l + BAP 0.1 mg/l) and without hormones. Three different hormonal media did not show significant differences for callus size and fresh weights but shooting frequency was high (94%) and the highest number of shoot (6–28 per explant) were obtained and recognized significant difference in compar- ison to previous experiments which carried out without hormonal shocks. Keywords: Embryo axis culture, Immature cotyledons, Shoot and Root regeneration DOI: 10.3103/S1068367411020108