Journal of Ornamental Horticulture

Chrysanthemum (Chrysanthemum grandiflora Tzvelev) is highly amenable for tissue culture. Studies were taken up at the Tissue Culture unit of the Horticultural College so as to standardize micropropagation protocols from ray florets of Chrysanthemum. The experiments revealed that the survival percentage was maximum when ray floret explants of cv. Ravi Kiran were exposed to 0.1% mercuric chloride for 2 minutes. The best response of ray florets with respect to culture establishment, shoot initiation and proliferation was obtained with BAP 2.0 mg-1 which took minimum number of days for shoot initiation (10.50 days). The number of shoots proliferated per culture from ray florets at different stages of sub culturing was highest with BAP 2.0 mg⁻¹ (20.50 ± 0.94). For micro shoot elongation GA₃ 0.1 mg⁻¹ recorded the maximum response and maximum length of shoot. The number of roots was highest with IAA 1.0 mg⁻¹ + IBA 1.0 mg⁻¹ which also produced the longest roots. Among the growing media used for hardening of plantlets, the survival was significantly highest in sand. Among the various hardening environments studied, placing plantlets covered with punched polythene (25μ) sleeves in under mist chamber excelled.