Effect of Sucrose on Growth and Stress Status of Castanea sativa x C. crenata Shoots Cultured in Liquid Medium

[Abstract] Current breeding programs aim to increase the number of ink-tolerant chestnut trees using vegetative propagation of selected genotypes. However, the commercial vegetative propagation of chestnut species is still a bottleneck for the forest industry, mainly due to problems in the rooting and acclimation of propagules. This study aimed to explore the potential benefits of decreasing sucrose supplementation during chestnut micropropagation. Explants were cultured with high light intensity and CO2-enriched air in temporary or continuous immersion bioreactors and with different sucrose supplementation to evaluate the impact of these treatments on growth, rooting and physiological status (monosaccharide content, soluble phenolics and antioxidant activity). The proliferation and rooting performance of shoots cultured by continuous immersion decreased sharply with sucrose concentrations lower than 1%, whereas shoots cultured by temporary immersion grew and rooted successfully with 0.5% sucrose. These results suggest this system is appropriate to culture chestnut with low sucrose concentration and to explore photoautotrophic propagation of this species.

This research was funded by Xunta de Galicia (Spain) (projects IN607A 2021), by CYTED (P117RT0522), and by CSIC (PIE 202140E015, COOPB20584)

Xunta de Galicia; IN607A 2021

Programa Iberoamericano de Ciencia y Tecnología para el Desarrollo (CYTED); P117RT0522

Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas; PIE 202140E015

Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas; COOPB20584