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In vitro culture experiments were carried out with three birch genotypes characterized by certain genealogical relationships which serve as indicators of genetic similarity or dissimilarity. Each genotype was grown in each of six different environments (medium types), and callus growth and colour were observed. The aim was to improve our understanding of the operation of genetic and environmental effects at the early stages of regeneration in vitro. For this purpose we tried to answer the question as to whether genetic differences exert effects that are consistently distinguishable under different environments or whether environmental differences exert effects that are consistently distinguishable between different genotypes. Since conventional analytical methods, such as the analysis of variance, are inappropriate for providing satisfactory answers to this question, we applied a new concept of interpretation. With the help of this concept we obtained the following results which appear to be unique among their kind. 1) For both characters, callus growth and callus colour, genetic differences are masked only slightly by the environments while environmental differences are almost completely masked by the genotypes. Thus, in the present experiment, interaction is one-sided in the sense that environmental effects interact strongly with genotypic effects but genotypic effects interact only slightly with the environmental ones. 2) Nuclear effects seem to be responsible for the differences observed in callus growth, while the differences in callus colour can be explained by the joint action of nuclear and extranuclear effects.

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