Plant Tissue Cult. 10(1) : 1-8, 2000 (June)

In vitro Cultures Studies on Date Palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) cv. Mosaifah and Nabtat Sultan

Nasser S. Al-Khalifah

King Abdulaziz City for Science & Technology, P.O. Box 6086, Riyadh-11442, Saudi Arabia

Key words: Phoenix dactylifera, In vitro culture.

Abastract

Shoot tips and primordial leaves from offshoots of Mosaifah and Nabtat Sultan cultivars of date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) were used as explants to induce callus on modified MS media supplemented with 2,4-D, 2ip, Kn and NAA as growth regulators. Contamination free cultures were obtained using 0.1% mercuric chloride followed by 1.0% sodium hypochlorite with a few drops of Tween 20. Domestor and Virkon were also used separately as sterilant. Of the two, Virkon proved to be more effective than Domestos in checking contamination. Among two gelling agents agar and gelrite were used; the latter worked better in the maintenance of contamination free callus, enbryogenic callus and embryogenesis. Of the two cultivars, Mosaifah showed better response to the medium by faster callus induction and embryogenesis. Generally, both the cultivars were characterized by slow growth al all stages of their development.

Download Full Article