TITLE:
Micropropagation of Avocado (Persea Americana Mill.)
AUTHORS:
Jayeni C. A. Hiti-Bandaralage, Alice Hayward, Neena Mitter
KEYWORDS:
Avocado, Micropropagation, In Vitro Culture, Shoot Regeneration, Root Regeneration, Acclimatisation
JOURNAL NAME:
American Journal of Plant Sciences,
Vol.8 No.11,
October
31,
2017
ABSTRACT: Avocado is a high demand, high value tropical fruit
recognised for its nutritional value. Being planted as a grafted tree,
propagation of avocado refers to propagation of rootstock cultivar, then graft
it with bud-wood from a mature scion cultivar. Elite cultivar propagation is
critical to maintain the quality of fruit and farm management practices.
Avocado propagation through seeds exhibit high genetic variation, hence less
appealing for orchard plantings. Rooting of cuttings is only possible through a
complex, lengthy and expensive process called “Frolich and Platt method”. This creates limitations on rapid industry
expansion due to scarcity and high price of plants in many countries.
Alternative propagation methods are sought over 5 decades. Potential of
micropropagation has been well demonstrated for wide variety of economically
important plants. Commercial application of micropropagation for avocado will
undoubtedly boost the industry around the globe. In this review, we present the
developments in micropropagation of recalcitrant species, avocado, over the
last 45 years. We summarise the culture media composition, hormones, growth
conditions for different stages of avocado micropropagation pipeline,
elaborating on cultivar specificity for in
vitro success, and problems encountered under in vitro conditions and during acclimatisation. Overview of the
current knowledge is critical to focus on important aspects in
protocol optimisation, to develop an efficient and effective micropropagation
system for avocado as well as other woody plant species recalcitrant for
micropropagation.