Studies on micropropagation of rough lemon

摘要

In citrus, rough lemon (Citrus jambhiri Lush.) is the most widely used polyembryonic rootstock for various scion cultivars all over the world. The trees budded on this rootstock are vigorous, precocious, bear heavily, remain productive for longer period and produce high quality fruits. It imparts resistance to tristeza and exocortis viroid, tolerant to salt and drought. Being polyembryonic in nature, rough lemon seeds give rise to nucellar and zygotic seedlings, which are difficult to distinguish bymorphology at early growth stages. The methods available for distinguishing nucellar from zygotic plants are either not sufficiently reliable or are laborious. They also require somewhat sophisticated laboratory equipment not usually available to nurseryoperators (Furr and Reece, 4; Weinbaum et al., 9; Ashari et al., 1). Further, plants grown from seeds exhibit extended juvenility. One method that can be used to overcome these problems is micropropagation of this economically important rootstock, which also provide advantage of increased rate of multiplication, disease-free and uniform planting material with the year around availability. Hence, the present study was undertaken to standardize the protocol for its in vitro multiplication.