Nutrient concentrations of in vitro culture is crucial for Desmodium incanum DC. Acclimatization

Abstract

Desmodium incanum is a perennial species, native in grassland of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil and popularly known as "pega-pega". Due its good characteristics as forage, the degradation of the natural fields became an alarming reality. The conservation of these species requires the knowledge of the nutritional requirements and the abiotic conditions that the species is adapted. So, besides in vitro culture as germplasm conservation, it is suggested practices such as acclimatization of plants to increase the survival percentage in ex vitro environment. The plant nutritional status in the period prior to the acclimatization may influences the results of survival and development during this process. To this end, it was tested the influence of nutrition of the seedling during in vitro cultivation on the D. incanum acclimatization through variations in the salt composition of the culture medium. Our results showed that the culture medium which provided the greatest survival rate and better plant growth was MS medium with half the standard concentration of salts. On the other hand, we observed that the iron halving, in culture medium, during in vitro culture was highly detrimental to the acclimatization process of D. incanum. So we could confirm the importance of nutritional status on in vitro culture for acclimatization stage.