Effects of Polyethylene Glycol on the Acclimatization of Plantlets of Date Palm Phoenix dactilifera L. CV. Barhi Produced In vitro

Abstract

This study was conducted in the technical lab of plant tissue culture that belongs to the private sector located at Shatt Al Arab, Al-Fayhaa Quarter from March 2012 to March 2013. The study aimed to investigate the effect of soaking the plantlets of date palm cv. Barhi in PEG (8000). To carry on the study, the resulting plantlets from culturing the shoot tip were used. The latter were taken from 2-3 years offshoots which were cultured on solid nutrient media comprising from MS salts and some other chemical components (activated charcoal 3 g.l-1, 30 mg.l-1 NAA, and 3 mg.l-1 2-ip). After the formation and development of the initial callus to embryogenic callus, the latter was cultured on a medium with similar previous components but the NAA and AB levels were used to 0.5 mg.l-1 and charcoal to 100 mg.l-1. When the somatic embryos were developed, they were germinated on the same medium that resulted in developing the plantlets. As the plantlets reached 10-12 cm high, they were put into experiment. The results can be summarized as follows:1-It has been found that soaking the plantlets in 2% of PEG decreased the lost humidity of them to 22.30% after 6 weeks of acclimatization. This was not significantly different from the same concentration after 8 weeks and the concentration 1% after the sixth and seventh weeks as the lost humidity was 21.27%, 26.9%, 23.4% respectively.2-The 2% of PEG showed a significant difference compared with the other two concentrations in the percentage of lost humidity of acclimatized plantlets which was 80%, whereas the percentage of the control treatment was 20%.3-The results showed that elevating the PEG concentration up to 2% significantly increased leave chlorophyll content on plantlets which was 3.9 mgg fresh weight, whereas the increase of chlorophyll was 3.42 and 1.80 mgg in the two concentrations 1% and 0% respectively with a significant difference between them.