EVALUATION ON THE EFFECTS OF CULTURE MEDIUM ON REGENERATION OF OIL PALM PLANTLETS FROM IMMATURE EMBRYOS (IE)

Oil palm (Elaeis guineensis) tissue culture is slow, inefficient and genotype dependent.Therefore, efforts to improve the regeneration system are essential and thereby on-going.Immature embryos (IE) have been reported to be more responsive to in vitro culture as compared to other explant types.The objective of this study is to evaluate the most efficient culture media for the regeneration of whole plants from IE. IE were cultured on three media, namely N6, MY3 and MS +Y3.Initial observation showed that calli were induced as early as two weeks after culture.They started to produce friable calli around three to four months later.IE were shown to respond differently to the tested culture media.This initial result will be useful to identify the most responsive culture media for IE as explant.