Abstract

Abdul Aziz Mirani* Adel Ahmed Abul-Soad and Ghulam Sarwar Markhand

Orchids are considered the most beautiful and valuable cut flower and potted plants all over the world. Although, micropropagation has become very important nowadays to meet growing market demand, there are still some barriers that hamper the ultimate goal to achieve viable ex vitro plants. Acclimatization has remained very serious issue. The current study was carried out to investigate the impact of different substrates available in nature on the survivability and development of ex vitro plantlets under net house conditions. The step-wise protocol of acclimatization utilized plantlets with well-developed roots produced in MS rooting medium involved NAA at 3.0 mg l-1 . The substrates used for acclimatization were different mixtures of coco-peat, desert sand, bricks chips, saw dust, coal pieces and date palm chips. The treatment contained coco-peat: desert sand: perlite at ratio 1.0:1.0:0.2 (v/v/v) proved the best mixture with 100% survival rate after 120 days of transplantation. Furthermore, addition of wood and bark chips to this best soil substrate as an upper layer improved the subsequent growth and development of plants. Number of new shoots and other growth parameters were recorded and the whole protocol is discussed in the current study