In vitro propagation of Santalum album L.

Santalum album L. (sandalwood) is a valuable tropical plant species that belongs to the family Santalaceae. Santalol - the active compound in S. album, which is commonly known as sandalwood oil is highly valued in the perfumery industry due to its sweet persistent aroma. Sandalwood plants are over-exploited for harvesting their wood. Although the species is naturally regenerated by seeds the success rate is as low as 20 %. Due to the hemi-parasitic nature of S. album, the survival of seedlings is low making the species rare in Sri Lanka. There is a high demand for sandalwood plants for commercial scale plantations. Therefore in the present study, plantlet regeneration through somatic embryogenesis was studied in order to produce a large number of healthy plants to be used in establishing commercial scale plantations.

Mature and immature seeds, leaf discs and nodal segments were used as explants for embryonic callus induction. Nodal segments found to be the best explants for embryonic callus production. Murashige and Skoog medium (MS) supplemented with 2.5 mg/L 2,4-dichloro phenoxy acetic acid (2,4-D) and 3.0 mg/L kinetin (kin) induced callus with a mean diameter of 3.22 ± 0.1 cm after 8 weeks of incubation. Somatic embryo induction was optimized by the addition of 0.5 mg/L benzyl amino purine (BAP), 1.0 mg/L indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) and 0.5 mg/L kin to MS medium, which resulted about 10 somatic embryos per 1.0 cm2 of callus. Somatic embryos germinated best in MS medium supplemented with 2.0 mg/L gibberellic acid (GA3). The highest percentage of plantlet regeneration was observed when the germinated embryos were transferred into MS medium supplemented with 0.4 mg/L BAP and 0.2 mg/L IAA.

J.Natn.Sci.Foundation Sri Lanka 2015 43 (3):265-272