Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and micropropagation of high value crops

Abstract

Micropropagation has established its position as a way of propagating large numbers of uniform plants. For some plant species that are difficult to propagate by seeds or by conventional cuttings, this technique provides the only possible way of producing high quality plants. Micropropagation is widely used for propagation of high value crops like ornamentals, fruits, vegetables, plantation crops and spices (Vestberg and Estaún 1994). The micropropagation industry was growing fast in Europe up to 1992 (O’Riordain 1992) but after that the micropropagation industry seems to have stabilized its position although a slight increase in production of microplants was still recorded for the period 1993-1996 (O’Riordain 2000). Prunus is the most important plant in both commercial and official laboratories (O’Riordain 2000).KeywordsBiotizationoptimatization of micropropagationmultimicrobial inoculummycorrhizationweaning stress