SHIPRA JAISWAL, MEENA CHOUDHARY, SARITA ARYA, TARUN KANT 21 J. Plant Develop. 22(2015): 21 – 30 MICROPROPAGATION OF ADULT TREE OF PTEROCARPUS MARSUPIUM ROXB. USING NODAL EXPLANTS Shipra JAISWAL 1 , Meena CHOUDHARY 1 , Sarita ARYA 1 , Tarun KANT 1* Abstract: Attempts were made for in vitro propagation of Pterocarpus marsupium Roxb., belonging to family Fabaceae, an economically important multipurpose tree. The tree is scared with noval antidiabetic properties. The tree shows poor seed germination capacity (30%) due to hard seed coat and conventional vegetative regeneration methods are a complete failure. Therefore, the propagation of this tree by tissue culture techniques is an urgent need and well justified. Nodal segments containing axillary bud from 10 years old tree of P. marsupium were evaluated for axillary shoot proliferation on Murashige and Skoog’s (MS) basal medium fortified with BAP (6–benzylaminopurine) and kinetin (Kn) singly or in combinations with auxins at different concentrations. The best shoot proliferation was obtained with 13.95 μM Kn + additives (568 μM Ascorbic acid, 260 μM Citric acid, 605 μM Ammonium sulphate and 217 μM Adenine sulphate) in MS medium where 64.44% of the axillary buds responded with development of (2.51±0.10) shoots. Multiplication of in vitro shoots were achieved on MS Medium supplemented with Kn (9.30 μM) + NAA (0.54 μM) and additives. Half strength MS medium supplemented with 4.92 μM IBA induced in vitro rooting of in vitro shoots. In vitro regenerated plantlets with well developed roots were successfully hardened in a greenhouse. Keywords: acclimatization, Fabaceae, in vitro, recalcitrant, tissue culture Introduction Pterocarpus marsupium Roxb. is a deciduous tree, commonly called as Indian Kino tree or malabar kino, belonging to the family Fabaceae. It is a medium to large sized tree reaching the height upto 15-20 meter with dark brown to grey bark having swallow cracks. The bark excudes a red gummy substance called ‘Gum Kino’ when injured. Leaves are compound and imparipinate. Flowers are yellow in terminal panicles. Fruit is circular winged pod. Seed is convex and bony. Tree flowers and fruits in the month of March to June. P. marsupium is distributed in deciduous forest throughout the India [VARGHESE, 1996]. It is a multipurpose leguminous tree. Heart wood is astringent, bitter, acrid, cooling, anti-inflammatory, depurative, haemostatic, revulsive and anthelmintic. The paste of seed and wood is useful in diabetic anaemia [TRIVEDI, 2006].The paste of heartwood is useful in body pain and diabeties. Wood of this tree is useful in making the waterglasses of diabetic [REDDY & al. 2008]. Due to overexploitation of the tree for its various useful applications coupled with low germinability, Pterocarpus marsupium has been included in the list of depleted plant species [CHOUDHARI & SARKAR, 2002]. Tissue culture method has been proved to be a promising technique for conservation and rapid multiplication of several forest rare woody species. However, 1 Arid Forest Research Institute, Forest Genetics and Tree Breeding Division, Molecular Biology Laboratory, New Pali Road, Jodhpur 342005 – India. * Corresponding author. e-mail: tarunkant@icfre.org