Micropropagation of Ziziphus mauritiana resistant to stem gall infection

Ziziphus mauritiana grafted plants were introduced to Kuwait recently for fruit production. The introduced plants started producing stem galls. These galls in Z. mauritiana were caused by the infection of mites. This infection occurred only in Z. mauritiana grafted plants. While evaluating few tissue culture derived Z. mauritiana in the field, the authors noticed plants that were resistant to the stem gall infection. The shoot tips from the resistant plants were cultured in vitro using Murashige and Skoog (MS) culture media containing 1 mg L^-1 BA for 30 days, and the plants were multiplied using MS culture medium containing 0.1 mg L^-1 BA through stem node culture. Rooting of the plantlets was achieved by culturing the shoots in half strength MS media containing 0.1 mg L^-1 NAA. Rooted plantlets were acclimatized using photoautotrophic culture method and transferred to the field for evaluation. The micropropagated plants from the stem gall resistant plant were found to be resistant to the stem gall infection. Micropropagation technique can be used for multiplying disease resistant Ziziphus plants in large numbers within limited time duration. The result of this study are discussed in this report.