MULTIPLYING BENEFITS WITH ACCLIMATIZATION PRACTICES (GACP) IN TISSUE CULTURE PROPAGATED ¿MRUDULA¿ POMEGRANATE

Abstract

Pomegranate is a crop with high value. Entire tree of pomegranate is of great economic importance. Apart from its demand for fresh fruits and juice, the processed products like wine and candy are also gaining importance in world trade. All parts of pomegranate tree have great therapeutic value and use in leather and dying industry. It is, therefore, a highly remunerative crop for replacing subsistence farming and thus alleviating poverty levels. It is an ideal crop for the sustainability of small holdings, as pomegranate is well suited to the variety of topography and agro-climatic area, especially of arid and semi-arid regions. In addition, it provides nutritional security, has high potentials to convert wastelands into cultivable lands and is an ideal crop for diversification. Pomegranate seeds germinate readily however, to avoid seedling variations, selected cultivars are usually reproduced vegetatively by means of hardwood cuttings. Grafting has never been successful but branches may be air-layered and suckers from a parent plant can be taken up and transplanted. In recent years pomegranate has been always on hot discussions due to heavy attack of diseases leading to losses in yields and monetary returns to the growers. The major reason for the spread of these diseases in the pomegranate orchards was found to be the poor sanitation and the use of unhealthy planting material for new plantations. Looking to the bottlenecks in the large scale multiplication and propagation of this crop, Jain Irrigation Systems Ltd., has developed protocol for the production of disease free planting material of pomegranate by using tissue culture technique. Micro-propagation of many plants is achieved through the establishment of explants, their initial growth in vitro being followed by transplanting into greenhouse for primary hardening and shade houses for secondary hardening. During in-vitro culture, plantlets grow under very special conditions. The tissue culture conditions that the plantlet has been grown in and the conditions the plants are to be transplanted into are often poorly understood by the two parties. Differences between the two environments and their effect on plants have been recognized in numerous studies that aim to understand the factors involved in the transition and establishment of tissue culture plantlets into a standard greenhouse and shade house environment and improve the success rate. The paper discusses some of the issue related to the standardizing the acclimatization practices involved in the production of pomegranate for the production of best quality, disease free and healthy tissue culture raised planting material ready for transplanting in the field to multiply the benefits manifolds than the conventional propagations methods.