IN VITRO PROPAGATION OF BULBOUS CROPS

In recent years an increasing amount of research efforts have been devoted to the development of in vitro propagation methods for a number of bulbous plants, belonging to the Liliaceae, Amaryllidaceae and Iridaceae.
Such methods offer the opportunity to rapidly build up small clones of plants with desired characters, e.g., new genotypes or disease-free plants, into commercial stocks.

In vitro propagation methods for bulbous crops are generally based on adventitious plantlet formation on explants of bulb scales, leaves, stem slices and (axillary) buds.
Bulblets are mostly preferred as the final product of these methods.

A number of important aspects can be distinguished within these methods:

• the number of plantlets formed per explant,

• the (bulblet) growth of these plantlets,

• the transfer to soil of these plantlets or bulblets, and

• the genetical uniformity with the parent plant(s).

In this lecture a critical evaluation was given of the literature on these aspects and on the plant- and environmental factors influencing them.

IV International Symposium on Flower Bulbs

J. van Aartrijk, P.C.C. van der Linde

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.1986.177.39