In vitro and ex vitro rooting of Siratia grosvenorii, a traditional medicinal plant

Abstract

Since a decade, the large-scale commercial production of Siratia grosvenorii plantlets is being practiced through in vitro culture of its microcuttings, but it has some drawbacks such as handling of plantlets, low transplant-survival rate, development of massive callus, low yield after transplantation, etc. An experiment has been conducted to improve the prevailing technique as well as to develop a new ex vitro technique to overcome these drawbacks. Several concentrations of naphthalene acetic acid (NAA) (0–4.0 mg/l) have been tried with the MS (Murashige and Skoog in Physiol Plant 15:473–479, 1962) basal medium containing 3% (w/v) sucrose and 4.0 g/l agar, out of which 0.1 mg/l NAA was found best in terms of smaller diameter of callus and maximum rooting and transplant survival rate. Further, use of perlite instead of agar medium also showed possibilities for future research on commercial-scale plantlet production. Ex vitro rooting technique was found superior to the in vitro one as plantlets developed through this method had lateral roots without any callus at the base of microcuttings, just like the natural root system and of course with higher root length, rooting rates, and transplant survival rate compared to the in vitro developed plantlets. Further, this technique is economical in terms of labor and time saving and gives rise to vigorous plants which ultimately bring higher yields and profits.