COMMERCIAL PRODUCTION OF GLOBE ARTICHOKE (CYNARA SCOLYMUS L.) IN-VITRO

This work was carried out in the Laboratory of tissue culture Arid Land Agriculture Research Unit (ALARU) Faculty of Agriculture Ain Shams University during the two autumn seasons of 2006 and 2008 in two separated experiments. First: Micropropagation of globe artichoke (Cynara scolymus L.).Second: Acclimatization of plantlets produced from tissue culture condition to the open field. First experiment: data cleared that there is a relationship between the size of shoot-tip and the percentage of survival regenerated and the time needed to regenerate shoots however increasing the size of shoot tip explants from 2 to 5 cm led to a gradual increase in both survival and regenerated shoot percentage. And at the same time reduce the number of days needed to configured healthy shoots. Culturing the shoot tips explants in the media containing the ascorbic acid or citric acid led to a reduction of browning percentagIncreasing the levels of both cytokinins (BA and Kn) from 2.5 to 10.0 mg/L was sufficient to enhance the capability of explants to produce more shoots especially at high level but unfortunately the highest level of both cytokinins (10.0 mg/L) led to obtain callus formation beside shoots production which is undesirable. There are relationship between number of subculture and rates of shoots productions. Increasing the number of subcultures till fifth times increased gradually the number of shoot production and decreased shoot length. IBA added to the media for rooting the regenerated shoots encouraged the root formation (number and length|) than IAA treatments. On the other side addition of activated charcoal to the nutrient media is very important for enhancement root formationConcerning of the second experiment (acclimatization) data reported that culturing the plantlets produced from tissue culture in pots contained vermiculite either alone or in combination with other compounds gave the highest transplants survival percentage (60 - 90 % ) than other substrate treatments.