In Vitro Shoot Proliferation of Camellia ‘Purple Dawn’

Abstract

Abstract Success with in vitro propagation of camellias has been limited to juvenile material of Camellia japonica L. (1, 2, 6). Beauchesne (1) obtained callus from meristems cultured on either Knops or Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium (2) amended with 1 H- indole-3-butanoic acid (IBA), N -(phenyl-methyl)-1 H -purin-6-amine (BA), gibberellic acid (GA 3 ), and (2,4-dichlorophenoxy) acetic acid (2,4-D). Callus proliferated rapidly when cotyledons of camellias were cultured on a diluted (MS) medium (2). Subculturing the callus onto fresh media resulted in plantlet formation; however, no data were reported on multiplication rates to support these findings. More recently, Samartin et al. (6) reported callus formation from juvenile nodal explants of Camellia cultured on a modified MS medium supplemented with N -(2-fur-anylmethyl)-1 H -purin-6-amine (kinetin) (4.6 μM) and BA (4.4 μM). The objectives of this research were to define some of the requirements for shoot proliferation of mature Camellia ‘Purple Dawn’ in vitro.