Efficient in vitro regeneration protocol from different ex-plants in a drought tolerant variety BGD72 of Cicer arietinum L.

Chickpea, commonly known as gram is extensively cultivated as one of the most important winter crop throughout India, especially in northern states. Incidentally, it suffers from both biotic and abiotic stresses causing low productivity. In vitro plantlet regeneration protocol has been developed employing seed and seedling explants for improving the crop through biotechnological manipulations. The three explant types - seed, embryonal axis and nodal segment (excised from 30-d-old seedling) were cultured on Murashige and Skoog's basal medium supplemented with various growth regulators, i.e. N⁶-benzyladenine (BA), kinetin (Kn), - naphthaleneacetic acid (NAA), in-dole-3-butyric acid (IBA) and in-dole-3-acetic acid (IAA) alone or in combination. Of the explants tried, the seed explants elicited best morphogenic response in terms of multiple shoots production. BA at 5 μM proved optimum for eliciting an average of 3.7 ± 1.2 shoots in 50% cultures in seeds whereas for embryonal axis 100% cultures induced an average of 3.1 ± 0.2 shoots on the same level in 30 d. However for nodal explants, 2.5 μM BA showed better response and an average of 3.25 ± 0.38 shoots per explants was induced in 91.7% cultures. For induction of roots, MS (½) + 5 μM IBA proved best where 72.5% shoots developed an average of 18.10 ± 1.37 roots within 20 d. The plantlets have been hardened and transferred to soil.