IN VITRO GROWTH OF ANANAS COMOSUS L. MERR (PINEAPPLE) SHOOT APICES ON DIFFERENT MEDIA

"In vitro growth" in general is the culture of cells, tissues and organs under aseptic conditions. Meristem tip or shoot tip culture of plant tissues, which is a type of an in vitro growth, is important to obtain virus-free plants and also for clonal multiplication.

The growth performance of shoot apices of Ananas comosus L. Merr, under different chemical environments (i.e. different growth regulators in different concentrations) was observed. Main objectives of this work were to study further growth of the apices and to achieve bud proliferation which would be a rapid propagating method of pineapple. The shoot apices behaved differently on different culture media. On media containing NAA (10^-7 M), the apex developed into a green shoot system within one week. The shoot apices developed many buds in the presence of cytokinins (kinetin or BAP, each at 10^-5 M). But bud proliferation was enhanced when BAP (10^-5 M) was combined with IAA (10^-6 M). The study indicates that the chemical environment, the growth regulators in this case, affect further growth of the shoot apex.

It was also observed that the proliferation is suppressed by the presence of many leaf primordia in the inoculated apex. With the removal of excessive leaf primordia, a sudden appearance of buds occurred. The proliferated buds could be maintained by subculturing every six weeks. Upon transfer to the basic medium with NAA (10^-7 M) the buds were regenerated into complete plants within one week.