PROPAGATION OF DRACAENA UMBRACULIFERA PLANT BY TISSUE CULTURE TECHNIQUE

An experiment was conducted at the Tissue Culture Laboratory of Al-Zohriya Garden, Hort. Res. Inst., ARC, Giza, Egypt during 2018 and 2019 seasons, with the aim to determine the best protocol of tissue culture technology to propagate Dracaena umbraculifera plant. For the possibility of spreading its cultivation to preserve it from extinction. As this plant is found in very few numbers, and it is difficult to form seeds under the climatic conditions in Egypt. Results obtained stated that using Clorox at 40% for 20 min gave the highest significant survival percentage (86.13%). For multiplication stage, benzyl adenine (BA) proved its superiority over kinetin in the production of a greater number and length of shoots. The highest number of shoots (3.20) was obtained with BA at 1.5 ppm and the highest shoots length (2.23 cm) was recorded with BA at 1.3 ppm. For rooting stage, the use of 1-naphthaleneacetic acid (NAA) at 0.3 ppm produced the highest values of roots number/plantlet (3.13) and root length (5.93 cm), while the lowest values were recorded when using indole-3-butyric acid (IBA) at 0.1 ppm. For acclimatization stage, the type of pot media had a significant effect. Using peat moss only under greenhouse condition gave the highest survival percentage (100%) and the highest values for all the measurements such as plant height (cm), number of leaves/plant, root length (cm), number of roots/plant, fresh and dry weights of leaves and roots (g/plant). Likewise, for the content of the leaves of total chlorophyll, carotenoids and the percentage of total soluble sugars. So, it can be recommended to make a protocol by using the tissue culture technique for propagating of Dracaena umbraculifera plant as follows: use Clorox at 40% for explant sterilization, using 1.5 ppm of BA in the multiplication stage, using 0.3 ppm of NAA in the rooting stage and using peat moss only to grow dracaena plant in the acclimatization stage to get plants with good growth characteristics