Efficient and Rapid Tea Plant Propagation Using Stem Explants

Objective At present, there are some problems in the breeding of tea plant tissue culture seedlings, such as low efficiency of bud induction and low propagation coefficient. Therefore, an efficient and rapid technology to propagate tea plants using stem explants in the tissue culture was developed for preserving and breeding germplasms.

Method The stem explants of a premium tea cultivar in the nation, Baochun No.1, from the population at Baojia Village in Shucheng County, Lu'an City, Anhui, was used for the study. Propagation and preservation performances of specially designed methods of disinfection, bud induction, adventitious bud induction (Stage I and II), bud elongation, and rooting for the tissue culture experiment were evaluated.

Result The optimized media and achieved goals of the in vitro propagation method were (1) the medium formulated with MS + 3 mg 6-BA·L⁻¹ to deliver a bud induction rate of 82.2%, (2) the medium for Stage I adventitious bud proliferation contained MS + 2 mg 6-BA·L⁻¹ + 0.2 mg NAA·L⁻¹ to give a budding rate of 77.78% with an average bud count of 5.4, (3) the medium for Stage II adventitious bud proliferation of MS + 1 mg 6-BA·L⁻¹ + 0.3 mg NAA·L⁻¹ + 2 mg TDZ·L⁻¹ to yield the maximum induced bud count of 10.43 on average with green buds and spread leaves, (4) the medium of MS + 0.8 mg 6-BA·L⁻¹ + 0.08 mg NAA·L⁻¹ to produce an adventitious bud elongation at 63.33%, and (5) the medium of 1/2MS + 3 mg IBA·L⁻¹ that could only render a less than desirable growth cycle, count, and inducing frequency on adventitious roots.

Conclusion The newly developed technique for propagating high quality tea cultivars was efficient, rapid, and practical for the application at plantations. It could improve the owners’ financial return as well as the industry’s competitiveness on the market.