Tissue Culture Technology for Rapid Multiplication of Dendrocalamus giganteus Munro

Micropropagation of Dendrocalamus giganteus through axillary bud culture is described. Multiple shoots were induced from in-vitro culture of nodal shoot segments containing axillary bud. Nodal segments produced axillary shoots in 2-3 weeks on Murashige and Skoog's (MS) medium supplemented with BAP (10-40 μ M). These shoots were excised from mother explants and subcultured on different concentrations of BAP in MS medium. Highest shoot multiplication rate of 5.44 fold was obtained on 20 μ M BAP medium. On MS medium supplemented with Kn only 3-4 fold shoot multiplication was obtained. The addition of BAP (10 μ M) in the kinetin (10 μ M) supplemented medium enhanced the shoot multiplication rate to 6.35 fold. 16-66 % ischolar_mains were formed on excised propagules of 3-5 shoots when transferred to MS medium supplemented with 15-25 μ M IBA. The maximum ischolar_mains per propagule (8.66) and ischolar_maining percentage (90 %) was obtained on MS medium supplemented with 25 μ M IBA + 0.05 μ M BAP. These tissue culture raised plants were successfully hardened and acclimatized and transferred to field condition.