SHORT COMMUNICATION Effect of differential concentration of micronutrient copper and zinc on in vitro morphogenesis of Foeniculum vulgare Mill. Pratibha Dwivedi 1 • Dhruti Amin 2 • Abhishek Sharma 1,2 Received: 23 February 2019 / Accepted: 18 November 2019 Ó Indian Society for Plant Physiology 2019 Abstract The present study was carried out to investigate the morphogenic roles played by copper and zinc during micropropagation of Foeniculum vulgare Mill., an aro- matic medicinal herb and the major spices of traditional food. When grown on MS medium the cotyledonary node gave the maximum multiple shoot proliferation over MS medium supplemented with 1.0 mg L -1 BAP concentra- tion. Incorporation of 0 lM CuSO 4 or 29.91 lM ZnSO 4 to Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium with optimized con- centration of BAP i.e. 1.0 mg L -1 induced a maximum number of shoot buds per nodal explant (4.3 ± 0.8 and 4.1 ± 1.1, respectively). However, higher concentration of both the micronutrients effectively affected the mor- phogenic potential of F. vulgare. The optimum concen- trations of Cu and Zn in culture media are highly important for obtaining rapid and enhanced in vitro multiplication of F. vulgare. Keywords Foeniculum vulgare Mill. Á Micropropagation Á Micronutrients Á Copper Á Zinc Introduction Foeniculum vulgare Mill. (Family Apiaceae; 2n = 22) commonly known as fennel, is the only known species of genus Foeniculum. F. vulgare is an aromatic herb the major spices of Indian traditional food and native to Mediterranean region and Southern Europe. It is mainly cultivated in India, South Africa, Italy, Argentina, United States, Rumania, Germany, France, and Japan. Italy leads in the production of F. vulgare accounting for 85% of the world market followed by India with 16.28% production. It is an annual green herb and cultivated for its aromatic seeds and young leaves, both of which are used for flavouring. The plants are stout, moderately branched, slow growing and attain the average height of 1.0–1.6 m. F. vulgare seeds are small, endospermic (oily endosperm) and have aroma with a strong and sweet taste. The bulb, foliage and seeds of the F. vulgare plant are widely used in many of the culinary traditions of the world. Previous studies conducted on F. vulgare showed that the herb effectively controls several bacterial, mycobacte- rial, fungal and protozoan infectious disorders (Morales et al. 2012; Dua et al. 2013; Orhan et al. 2012). F. vulgare is enormously used as traditional Indian and Chinese medicine for its antioxidant, chemopreventive, hepatopro- tective, hypoglycemic and estrogenic activities and also have memory enhancing property (Pradhan et al. 2008; Badgujar et al. 2014). The seed yields 5% essential oils composed predominantly of anethole (50–80%), limonene, fenchone, estragole and is also a good source of fibers, potassium and Vitamin C (Badgujar et al. 2014). Foeniculum vulgare plant is highly threatened by sev- eral pathogenic diseases like leaf infection caused by Phytophthora syringae (Kleb.), Alternaria blight disease by Alternaria alternate, Cercospora blight by Cercospora & Abhishek Sharma abhi19ind@gmail.com; abhishek.sharma@utu.ac.in 1 Department of Science, Biyani Girls College, Sector-3, Vidhyadhar Nagar, Jaipur 302023, India 2 C. G. Bhakta Institute of Biotechnology, Uka Tarsadia University, Gopal-Vidyanagar, Maliba Campus, Surat 394350, India 123 Plant Physiol. Rep. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40502-019-00478-4