African Journal of Agricultural Research Vol. 6(15), pp. 3583-3587, 4 August, 2011 Available online at http://www.academicjournals.org/AJAR ISSN 1991-637X ©2011 Academic Journals Full Length Research Paper Ex vitro shoot regeneration and lateral buds of freshly harvested saffron corms Amirreza Sadeghi Bakhtavari, Khalid Mahmood Khawar* and Neset Arslan Department of Field Crops, Faculty of Agriculture, Ankara University, 06110, Diskapi, Ankara, Turkey. Accepted 28 June, 2011 After formation of the replacement corms, the saffron leaves wither and the apical buds enter dormancy, which is released after-ripening at 23 to 30°C. This study aimed to break this dormancy and reports successful ex vitro shoot regeneration from saffron corms, just after harvesting by pulse treating for 30, 60, 90, 120 and 150 min with 50 mg/L Indole acetic acid (IAA) or 50 mg/L IAA + 10 mg/L Thidiazuron (TDZ). All corms were cultured in organic matter rich soil contained in plastic sieve trays in greenhouse with day time temperature in range of 9 to 15°C and night temperature in range of 5 to 8°C during experimentation with relative humidity of 50 to 60%. After 2 to 3 weeks, the pulse treated corms regenerated multiple number of shoots, which increased to 5-6 shoots per corm after 10 weeks of culture; showing statistically different and superior regeneration on 50 mg/L IAA + 10 mg/L TDZ pulse treated corms compared to IAA pulse treated corms. This protocol will help to increase and improve flowering for an extended period of time. Key words: Ex vitro, shoot regeneration, lateral buds, saffron, multiplication. INTRODUCTION The domesticated saffron (Crocus sativus L.), belonging to the Iridaceae family; is a perennial sterile auto- triploid mutant; which is cultivated for its stigmas since time immemorial (Karaoglu et al., 2007). The saffron plant is a geophyte and is propagated by vegetative reproduction through the formation of daughter corms from the mother corm. The stigmas of saffron are used as important high valued spice and are characterized as the most expensive spice by weight unit. They are also used for various therapeutic purposes in medicine, food seasoning and coloring (Sampathu et al., 1984; Karaoglu et al., 2007). Saffron contains more than 150 volatile and aroma-yielding compounds. It also has many nonvolatile active components, many of which are carotenoids, including zeaxanthin, lycopene, and various α- and β- carotenes. However, saffron's golden yellow-orange colour is primarily the result of α-crocin (Abdullaev, 2002). Saffron is produced in a very few countries of the world and invariably involves traditional labour intensive methods, which contribute to its very high price. *Corresponding author. E-mail: kmkhawar@gmail.com. Tel: 0090 312 596 15 40. Fax: 0090 312 318 26 66. Autotriploid nature of the species renders improvement by breeding very difficult (Basker and Negbi, 1989). Saffron has been produced and exported from Turkey until the 19 th century. However, due to a number of socio-economic and technical problems, now the cultivation of saffron has been limited to a few villages in the Safranbolu District of Karabuk province of Turkey (Karaoglu et al., 2007). Saffron is propagated by corms as the flowers are sterile and fail to produce viable seeds. A corm survives for only one season, producing up to ten "cormlets" that eventually give rise to new plants (Deo, 2003). It is common observance that after the formation of the replacement corms, the saffron leaves wither and the apical buds enter dormancy (Saiedian et al., 2007). This dormancy is released by high summer temperature and sprouting occurs only after a period of after-ripening obtained by curing bulbs at 23 to 30°C. Therefore, reproduction is human dependent; the corms must be manually dug up, broken apart and replanted. The natural propagation rate of most geophytes (Sevimay et al., 2005; Parmaksiz and Khawar, 2006; Ozel and Khawar, 2007; Aasim et al., 2008; Ozel et al., 2008), including saffron is relatively low (Karaoglu et al., 2007). The aim of the study was to develop a successful ex