Effect of Different Plant Growth Regulators on Direct Bulblet Regeneration from Scale Explants of Fritillaria imperialis

Fritillaria imperialis is a mono-cotyledon plant from the Liliaceae family that grows wild in some parts of Iran. Fritillaria is a medicinal plant, in addition to being a beautiful flower. Due to the uncontrolled harvesting of flower and bulbs, Fritillaria survival is threatened in some areas in Iran. Fritillaria can be propagated by seed. In favorite condition. Its propagation by seed and production of flower-beating bulbs takes about 6 years. In addition, plants grown from seed would not be like their parents due mainly to occurrence of cross-polination. Mass propagation of Fritillaria through conventional methods such as bulb culture is not efficient. Thus, its in vitro propagation as a criteria for preserving this valuable plant in its natural habitats was studied. We investigated direct embryogenesis of sterilized bulbs scale segments in MS medium at the presence of different plant growth regulators including NAA, IAA, TDZ, Kinetin and BA and the combination of kinetin and NAA in different concentrations. The highest number of direct somatic bulblets (8.33 bulblets), the biggest bulblets (26 mm) and the greatest number of roots (8 roots) were formed in 2 mg/L NAA. The least direct bulblet somatic generation was observed in TDZ treatments, bulblets formed tended to produce callus instead of growing. In the medium containing BA hormone no bulblet was produced. In conclusion, the results of this study revealed that propagation of Fritillaria imperialis is possible through in vitro culture by using 2 mg/L NAA