Improvement of Ex vitro Rooting and Acclimatization to Increase Micropropagation Efficiency of Aronia (Aronia mitschurinii)

In this study, the objective was to establish an easier and more effective rooting and acclimatization protocol for the micropropagation of aronia compared to common in vitro and ex vitro methods. The effects of indole3-butyric acid (IBA) applied at concentrations of 0, 25, 50, 100, 200, 500, 1000 and 1500 mg/L on ex vitro rooting and acclimatization of 'Viking' and 'Nero' aronia cultivars (Aronia mitschurinii) were investigated. The microcuttings were quick-dipped in IBA solution and then placed in floating perlite. They were incubated for 4 weeks at 25±2 °C under a 16 hour light (35 μmol∙m-2∙s-1) and 8-hour dark photoperiod. The survival percentage of microcuttings decreased significantly (43.0-70.2%) at high concentrations of IBA including 500 mg/L and above, particularly in the ‘Viking’ cultivar. A second experiment was performed at lower concentrations including 25, 50, 100 and 200 mg/L IBA treatments and the control. The survival percentage of microcuttings was 97.7% and 94.6% and the rooting and acclimatization percentages of surviving microcuttings were 99.7% and 99.3% for ‘Viking’ and ‘Nero’ cultivars respectively without any significant difference among IBA treatments. To summarise, the experiment yielded successful results in the ex vitro rooting and simultaneous acclimatization of aronia microcuttings. These processes were achieved through the utilisation of a floating perlite bed, with and without low concentration of indole-3-butyric acid (IBA).