Tissue Culture of Corymbia and Eucalyptus

Abstract

Eucalypts are among the world’s most widely planted trees, but the productivity of eucalypt plantations is limited by their often-low amenability to true-to-type propagation from cuttings. An alternative approach to cutting propagation is tissue culture, which can be used to micropropagate valuable genotypes rapidly while simultaneously preserving germplasm in vitro. This review describes the use of tissue culture methods such as shoot culture, organogenesis, and somatic embryogenesis for micropropagating eucalypts. This review also discusses the use of cool storage, encapsulation, and cryopreservation methods for preserving eucalypt germplasm and delaying tissue maturation under minimal-growth conditions.

Keywords

• adventitious roots
• alginate encapsulation
• clonal propagation
• juvenility
• plantlet conversion
• plant propagation
• plant preservation
• rooting
• synthetic seeds
• temporary immersion