Micropropagation (In vitro) techniques for sandal wood (Santalum album L.)

Abstract

Studies on Santalum album L. were carried out in the tissue culture laboratory at Forest College and Research Institute, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Mettupalayam, India to standardize the in vitro propagation techniques. The results on explant sterilization revealed that 0.01 percent HgCl2 for 5 min and 0.05 percent HgCl2 for 5 min were the best treatments respectively for sterilizing shoot tip from mature tree. Treatments involving 0.01 percent HgCl2 for 5 min and and 0.01 percent NaOCl for 3 min effectively controlled the contaminant respectively in nodal and intermodal segments. Among the explants tested for multiple shoot induction, intermodal segments proved good results. Among the two media viz., MS, White media, the species responded well to MS Medium. The best treatment for obtaining multiple shoot induction was MS + 5.0 mgl-1 Kin + 2.0mgl-1 BAP for shoot tip explants. For rooting of shoot tip cuttings 3 mgl-1 IBA was found to be the best treatment combination for maximum sprouting, rooting of cuttings, shoot length and root length