Micropropagation of Three Endemic Begonias Using Various Hormones Concentration and Culture Media Application

Abstract

Three species of Begonias endemic to Java and Sumatra, namely Begonia leuserensis, Begonia atricha and Begonia scottii, were conserved in Cibodas Botanic Gardens as sources of germplasm for ornamental plant and/or medicines. However, the information on efficient hormones concentration and their culture media application through an in vitro propagation effort is still limited. Therefore, this study aimed to explain the growth response of three species of Begonias using various hormones concentrations and culture media through in vitro propagation. The culture media using Murashige & Skoog (MS) media that combinedwith 6-Benzyladenine (BA) dan Thidiazuron (TDZ) hormones in different concentrations i.e. 0.5 mg/L, 1 mg/L, 2 mg/L, and 3 mg/L. Observation parameter included shoot number, plantlets height, and leaves number. The data were analyzed using analysis of variance (ANOVA) with the F test at a 5% significance level. The results showed that three species of Begonias were observed to have different growth responses in the combination of MS+BA and MS+TDZ media. The combination of MS+TDZ media produces more shoots number, while the combination of MS+BA media influenced higher in leaves number. A concentration of 0.5 mg/L of hormone showed a good regeneration, therefore were recommended for in vitro propagation of Begonia species.

A novel approach for begonias micropropagation by inflorescence explants

“…Based on the literature data, the most common types of explants used in micropropagation of Begonia species are leaf and stem segments (Beiyi et al, 2021;Hosseinabadi et al, 2022). But a severe contamination in explants of vegetative origin (Correia et al, 2018), as well as a different genespecific reaction to growth regulators application in the Begonia in vitro culture (Ismaini et al, 2021) create certain difficulties in developing methods for clonal micropropagation of Begonia representatives. The main problem with the establishment of Begonia flower explants in vitro is the lack of a strategy that provides regeneration of plantlets in the direct way.…”