Micropropagation of eleutherococcus senticosus through axillary bud culture

Abstract

Siberian ginseng (Eleutherococcus senticosus) is endangered mainly because of overexploitation. A multiplication system was established via in vitro nodal cutting of the stem. When cotyledonary seedling nodes were cultured on Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium with different concentrations of GA3 (1.0–30.0 mg/L) for 3 weeks, shoots with nodes were formed from the cotyledonary nodes. Thereafter, nodal segments (including an axillary bud) excised from these shoots were incubated on MS, Lloyd and McCown (WPM) and Schenk and Hildebrandt (SH) media with various concentrations of auxin, cytokinin and GA3. The most effective medium and hormonal combination for the shoot formation from axillary buds of nodal segments was MS medium containing BA (2.0 mg/L), IBA (0.5 mg/L) and GA3 (0.5 mg/L). In this environment, 99.93 % of axillary buds produced shoots, with an average shoot length of 16.95 mm and 2.75 nodes were formed per shoot. Rooting of axillary shoots was most effectively achieved on NH4NO3‐free, 1/2 MS medium with 0.5 mg/L NAA, and the rooting rate was 58.5% after 30 days of culture. Plantlets with shoots and roots were transferred to a mixture of perlite and peatmoss (1:5, v/v), and the survival rate of plants grown on medium with either NAA or IBA after 3 months was 90.3% or 79.2%, respectively.