In vitro Propagation of Garcinia quaesita Pierre

Abstract

Abstract— Garcinia quaesita Pierre has growing demand presently in the world for its remarkable medicinal value and has tremendous potential for introduction into home gardens as a cash crop. This experiment was designed to establish a protocol for in vitro propagation of Garcinia to fulfill the high demand of good quality planting material with the objectives of finding suitable sterilization and regeneration media. In experiment one, three treatments were tested to identify the best sterilization procedure using 1-3 cm long shoot tips cultured on Woody Plant Medium (WPM). As treatments, 0.1% Captan (1 hour) + 30% Clorox (20 minutes), 0.1% Captan (1 hour) + 30% Clorox (20 minutes) + 50% ethanol (5 minutes) and 0.1% Captan (1 hour) + 40% Clorox (20 minutes) + 50% ethanol (5 minutes) were used. Among those, treatment three showed the best performance (26.66% sterile culture, 2.22% bacterial contamination, 2.22% dead culture and 68.8% fungal contamination) compared to other treatments after 4 weeks. Therefore, treatment three was used for further experiments. In experiment two, apical buds were cultured on WPM supplemented with three concentrations of BAP at 3.0, 5.0, 10.0 mgL- 1 alone and 3.0 mgL-1 BAP with 0.5 mgL-1 NAA. The highest shoot length (0.68 cm), the highest numbers of leaves (1.55 ± 1.01) and the highest sterile culture percentage (44.55%) were observed in medium containing 3.0 mgL-1 BAP with 0.5mgL-1 NAA after 4 weeks (p=0.7089). There were not significant difference of shoot height among treatments. Leaf explant of Garcinia were cultured on WPM containing four levels of BAP (1, 2, 4, 8 mgL-1) with 0.5 mgL-1 NAA. Callus development from the leaf explants couldn’t observed during the time period and some were contaminated after 7 weeks. WPM containing 3.0 mgL-1 BAP with 0.5 mgL-1 NAA was the best treatment for in vitro propagation of Garcinia.