Background : Glycyrrhiza uralensis Fischer is one of most important medicinal (Glycyrrhizae radix) herbs in traditional oriental medication and they are also important commercial products used worldwide in sweetening and flavoring. They contain the similar compounds, such as the triterpenoid saponins and flavonoids. Therefore, it is necessary to develop more efficient and sustainable methods for the production of G. uralensis Fischer and its medicinal constituents. This study was accomplished to investigate the effect of medium composition on in vitro propagation and plantlet regeneration from nodal explants of G. uralensis Fischer, and to establish a reliable protocol for micropropagation. Methods and Results : Young and actively growing stem segments were excised from adult plants of new cultivar ‘manju’. They were cut into a 1cm nodal segments with single node after sterilization, and cultivated in the different medium supplemented with various plant growth regulators for two weeks. For shoot multiplication, one-node stem segments, approximately 1 ㎝ in length, were taken from in vitro derived shoots and subcultured. After four weeks of culture, the efficacy of each medium on shoot proliferation and growth was determined, and these shoots were transferred onto medium with different auxin hormones for rooting. Conclusion : After seven to ten days of culture, shoots began to emerge from axillary buds. They showed a vigorous growth and elongation in multiplication medium. During culture period, in vitro cultured plantlets showed significantly different responses to the respective medium with different plant growth regulators. Our experiments confirmed that in vitro growth and multiplication of palntlets could depend on its reaction to the different medium composition, and this micropropagation techniques could be a useful system for healthy and vigorous plant production.

This study was performed to develop the mass propagation system using tissue culture technique to supply the seeds of Elephant garlic (Allium ampeloprasum L.) which has difficulty in propagation. Immature spathe of Elephant garlic was cultured on Murashige & Skoog (MS) medium supplemented with two plant growth regulators, naphthaleneacetic acid (NAA) and kinetin. After 6 weeks of culture, the highest number of shoot (14.9/explant) was obtained when the immature spathe with 10 ㎝ length was cultured right after harvesting. In MS medium supplemented with 2 ㎎/L kinetin and 0.5 ㎎/L NAA, the most vigorous growth characteristics was observed, the shoot number was 14.9/explant, its length was 11.3 ㎝, and its fresh weight was 2.5 g. When the bulblets were cultured in MS medium with 2 ㎎/L kinetin and 0.5 ㎎/L NAA, the addition of 30 ㎎/L adenine improved their proliferation and growth significantly, the highest bulblet formation rate (48%) was obtained. The addition of 7% sucrose also increased the bulblet formation rate at the highest frequency of 98.2%. The shoots were shown be more vigorously proliferated at the secondary subculture stage rather than primary culture stage, their propagation rate was 80% after subculture.