IN VITRO PROPAGATION OF SPIREA BUMALDA AND PRUNUS CISTENA FROM SHOOT APICES

Abstract

A procedure was developed to produce large numbers of plants from multiple shoot, cultures which were obtained from shoot apices 1–5 mm long of Spirea bumalda ’Anthony Waterer’ and Prunus cistena grown on Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium containing 5 μM benzyladenine. Shoot production, harvested every 3–4 wk, yielded 300–400 shoots of Spirea and approximately 35 of Prunus per cycle. The salt concentration of MS inhibited rooting was reduced by half. Liquid media usually resulted in greater percent rooting than agar. Although there was some rooting of both species in medium without naphthalenacetic acid, this auxin increased rooting of both species with optima at about 0.1 μM for Spirea and 1 μM for Prunus.