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ABSTRACT
Alstroemeria is a genus native to South America and commercially has commonly been propagated vegetatively by rhizome division, with low efficiency, high time consumption and a high risk of virus dissemination. In vitro propagation has several advantages, particularly in terms of efficiency and has been applied to the micropropagation of alstroemeria. This study aims to describe an efficient method for the in vitro propagation of Alstroemeria pallida Graham, a Chilean native species of high ornamental value. Concentrations of agar (0.0, 3.5 and 7.0 g L-1) and 6-benzylaminopurine (BAP) (0.0, 0.5, 1.0 and 2.0 mg L-1) were supplemented with MS culture medium to evaluate explant weight (g), rhizome length (cm), shoot length (cm) and proliferation rate. The highest explant weight was observed in rhizomes grown in culture medium supplemented with 3.5 g.L-1 agar (3.79 g), and treatments using 2.0 g L-1 BAP showed the highest weight increase (3.33 g) after 8 wk. The proliferation rate rose with increasing concentrations of BAP, whereas low concentrations of BAP promoted longer shoots. An efficient method for in vitro propagation of A. pallida rhizomes was described, which could be useful for its conservation, domestication and further breeding.
Key words: Alstroemeria, cytokinins, agar, tissue culture and micropropagation.
INTRODUCTION
Alstroemeria belongs to the Alstroemeriaceae family and is native to South America, comprising 75 species (Bayer, 1987). Chile and Brazil are the main diversity centers with 33 and 39 native species, respectively (Muñoz and Moreira, 2003; Hofreiter and Rodríguez, 2006). Alstroemeria became very popular in the ornamental market both as cut flower and pot plant (Hoshino, 2008) due to the development of several varieties bred by techniques such as mutagenesis (Aros et al., 2012), polyploidization (Lu and Bridgen, 1997) and mainly interspecific hybridization (Bridgen et al., 2009). Propagation of alstroemeria has been commonly performed vegetatively by rhizome division, with low efficiency, high time consumption (Lin et al., 1997) and a high risk of virus dissemination, affecting yield during cultivation (Van Zaayen, 1995). In vitro propagation has been also considered to propagate alstroemeria since this technique has several advantages, particularly in terms of efficiency (Yousef et al., 2007; Pumisutapon et al., 2011; Seyyedyousefiet al., 2013; Hutchinson et al., 2014). Rhizome sections have been the most common explant used for the in vitro...