Severe pruning of leaves: key to achieving high multiplication of narcissus leaves in test-tubes

What is it about?

To multiply plants in test-tubes, getting microbes-free cultures is just the beginning. To succeed, you must make sure that these "starting" cultures multiply quickly & healthily. This paper describes my struggles with narcissus cultures & how I attained a major breakthrough.

Featured Image

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Why is it important?

After I successfully & consistently worked out the methodology to obtain microbial-free cultures of narcissus in test-tubes, I was faced with a great problem: I could not get these plantlets in test-tubes to multiply in large number (and do so within the 5-6 weeks of culture period). An accidental "brutal" pruning of the leaves of the plantlets in one of my cultures led to my discovery of the root cause of the low multiplication rates I faced. It was apical dominance (the apex aka top leaf exerting inhibition of growth of younger buds lower down at the growth zone, in this case the basal plate of the bulb). The removal of this dominant leaf allowed the other buds to grow and thus increasing the multiplication of leaves hugely. The following link shows a photograph of how the cultures were pruned to attain the desired results: https://photos.app.goo.gl/Z4Lb5WToDuka6tjY7 (credit: PhD thesis, Chow Yong Neng, Queen's University of Belfast)

Perspectives