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.

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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

When dividing cultures at the end of a culture period (the nutrients etc. of the original medium in the test-tube would be depleted or broken down in about 5 - 6 weeks of culturing), a successful protocol would see the multiplication of new leaves in the sub-divided cultures of at least 2 times. By removing the dominant leaf in a test-tube culture upon sub-division (called "sub-culture") my discovery allowed a multiplication of new leaves by at least 2 folds.

Dr. Yong Neng Chow
Zhaoqing University

Read the Original

This page is a summary of: A simple method for maintaining high multiplication of Narcissus shoot cultures in vitro, Plant Cell Tissue and Organ Culture (PCTOC), September 1992, Springer Science + Business Media,
DOI: 10.1007/bf00040025.
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