PROPAGATION OF ORNAMENTAL PLANTS, cilt.9, sa.4, ss.169-175, 2009 (SCI-Expanded)
Muscari macrocarpum Sweet, or yellow grape hyacinth, is an important ornamental plant with diffuse, golden yellow, tubular showy cone, shaped clusters of nodding urn shaped fragrant flowers. It is found in the Aegean region of Turkey and South Eastern Greece (East Crete and Amorgos isles) at altitude of 10-800 m. Although successful micropropagation of some Muscari species has been reported, however, no study reports in vitro or in vivo propagation of M macrocarpum. This report describes in vitro bulblet regeneration on twin scale explants through adventitious and axillary bulblet regeneration on MS medium containing different combinations of kinetin (1, 2, 4 mg l(-1)) and NAA (0.5, 1, 2 mg l(-1)). The highest numbers of 6 axillary and 5 adventitious bulbs per explant were recorded on MS medium containing 2 mg P kinetin and 0.5 mg l(-1) NAA or I mg P kinetin and 2 mg l(-1) NAA, respectively. The axillary bulblets with diameter of 1 mm that were excised from mother explants and subcultured on their respective regeneration media showed significant increase in bulb diameter after 10 weeks. Maximum increase in bulb diameter was recorded on MS medium containing 4 mg l(-1) kinetin and 2 mg l(-1) NAA. The bulblets regenerated on any variant of Kin-NAA were successfuly rooted on MS medium. They were acclimatized in the greenhouse and transferred to the fields to flower. The roots of acclimatized bulbs were re examined after 6 weeks. The results showed that in vitro developing roots decayed and were replaced by new, thin, longer, and profusely branched roots with maximum length of 12.34 cm. All acclimatized plants survived and showed flourishing growth under filed conditions.