Direct shoot generation from florets of chrysanthemum cultivars

Abstract

The National Botanical Research Institute, Lucknow has developed a series of unique chrysanthemum genotypes utilizing the existing germplasm stocks through conventional selective breeding and induced mutation breeding. Chrysanthemum can be propagated by seeds but due to extremely heterozygosity, vegetative propagation is preferred (cutting, suckers) for commercial purpose: But multiplication by this method is much too slow to be commercially practical. In vitro regeneration of chrysanthemum is well established from shoot apex [1-3] and nodal explants [4, 5]. Reports of adventitious shoot regeneration from floret explants of chrysanthemum are also available, but in all cases shoots were produced from floret derived callus [6-8] and there is always a loss of some genetic homogeneity with a lengthy callus phase [6, 8, 9]. Recently, a highly efficient direct adventitious shoot regeneration system from florets of chrysanthemum has been developed [10]. Moreover, contamination from floret explants are very low. In the present study an attempt has been made to develop protocol using direct shoot regeneration system from ray florets of 28 chrysanthemum genotypes for commercial exploitation.