Micropropagation of chestnut (Castanea sativa Mill.) in semi solid and liquid culture

In this study, micro-multiplication of three different chestnut genotypes have been compared in the GD+MS (1/2*NH4NO3 and KNO3) and MS (1/2*NH4NO3 and KNO3) semi-solid media. In addition to semi-solid media, their status of development has been observed in liquid medium (MS 1/2*NH4NO3 ve KNO3) shake culture which having less workforce cost. Genotypes used in this study have been selected among the chestnut stands from Nazilli district of Aydın province. The genotype numbers are N-3-4, N-23-1 and N-7-3. During the experiments, chestnut buds cultured in January in GD medium have been transferred in to MS (1/2 Nitrate) medium after six weeks, in March. Their development in this culture has been observed for a period time of six weeks. Moreover, in March another set of buds have been directly planted into MS (1/2 Nitrate) medium and they were also observed for six weeks. From our results, it can be seen that the shoot formation level has reached to 41.48% for MS (1/2 nitrate) medium and 25.51% for GD+ MS (1/2 Nitrate) medium relatively. The highest value of development has been obtained with offshoots from the N-3-4 (37.21%) genotype for MS (1/2 nitrate) medium. In addition, while the highest value of bud out and browning percentage isobserved in the GD+ MS (1/2 Nitrate) medium, the number of avarage leaves is achieved in the MS (1/2 nitrate) medium. When the results of liquid MS (1/2 Nitrate) are taken into consideration, it can be seen that a browning has been appeared on the explants. Some losses occured already before the third week of cultuvation.