Background : Sea buckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides) is a multipurpose small tree with unique berries of high nutritional and pharmaceutical values has wide spread distribution from Eurasia to South east Asia. In recent times the medicinal benefits of vitamin tree are inclining, hence, efforts were taken to propagate them in vitro to exploit their medicinal property.
Methods and Results : The tissue culture potential of them was investigated for the ability to induce shoot organogenesis in leaf explant, and induction of direct somatic embryogenesis from leaf tissue. Moreover, we also determined the effective induction medium for callus and somatic embryo production from H. rhamnoides. To induce the callus form leaf tissue, several phytohormone combinations such as α-naphthalene acetic acid (NAA) and 6-benzyladenine (BA), 2,4-Dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) and 6-benzyladenine (BA), and Kinetin (K) were tried with the Murashige and Skoog (MS) as well as woody plant medium (WPM). In MS basal medium, the combination of 2,4-D and K showed the best callus induction rate of 71%, whereas in WPM basal medium the combination of NAA and BA showed the best callus induction rate of 91%. The adventitious root induction form callus was also attempted by using MS and B5 medium with the phytohormone combinations of IBA 1 – 5 g/ℓ. In MS medium, root was induced only at 4 g/ℓ of IBA and 64%, 51% and 55% root induction results were obtained at 3 g/ℓ, 4 g/ℓ and 5 g/ℓ in B5 basal medium, respectively. The somatic embryos were induced only in half strength MS with the triple phytohormone ratio of 2:1:2 of NAA, BA, and K.
Conclusion : The in vitro propagation of sea buckthorn was successfully employed by generating callus, adventitious roots as well as the induction of somatic embryos form the leaf tissues derived callus. Our results provided a valuable addition to the utilization of H. rhamnoides thus enabling their propagation.