A FOG CHAMBER FOR ACCLIMATIZING IN VITRO PROPAGATED PLANTS TO OUTDOOR CLIMATE

A low-cost fog chamber was developed to acclimatize in vitro propagated plants to outdoor climate. The fog chamber was a long tube greenhouse, where the gradient of fog concentration existed. In the acclimatization process the gentian plantlets were first placed in a thick fog and were moved gradually toward less wetted environment. The shaded and the unshaded fog chambers were compared to the conventional shade treatment. When the plantlets were acclimatized without root (detached), their survival rates decreased in some treatments but the subsequent growth of the survival plants was larger than when acclimatized with root. Since the root initiation was the earliest in the unshaded fog chamber, the decrease of the survival rate was insignificant and the subsequent growth was the largest.