Hey, I'm a High School student working on tissue culture. I was wondering to what extent it has been attempted with Acer Palmatum. Are there any books on the topic? Have any of you tried it? This is a wonderful forum! Thanks, Bernie
Wow! Sounds like an aggressive project! I had to do a little research to find out what the heck you were talking about-"micropropagation". But after a little research, I have a tiny idea about what you are undertaking. I would bet that little has been done in this area concerning maples as they are readily propagated by seed, grafting, layering, and cutting. They also are not threatened in any widespread way and the focus of micropropagation has probably been focused on other more threatened species. Also, I don't think I read much about the micropropagation of "woody" plants. Also, it seems the genetic varitation within maples, especially Acer palmatum and its many cultivars, is quite large and controlling genetic expression invitro might be a challenge. But in any case, I am interested and hope that someone with background would respond. I am sure we all would be interested in knowing more about what you are attempting and how you came to the decision of Acer. Good Luck! Michael
While doing research I found out that Acer plattanoides (Norway Maple), and A. rubrum (Red Maple) have been propagated sucessfully via tissue culture. It seems that A. palmatum hasn't been very successful and is can be grown easily with other techniques. However I think that the lack of success may be due in part to a lack of a currect medium and process. I'll fiddle with it a bit and see what happens :) Thanks, Bernie
Hi Bernie: < I was wondering to what extent it has been attempted with Acer Palmatum. Are there any books on the topic? Have any of you tried it? > Micropropagation to me means the use of a microscope while using tissue so small we need a magnified aide to see what we are doing. Macropropation is probably the better term for use with most tissue culture techniques. Tissue culture work on named varieties of Japanese Maples first started somewhere around 1986. Generally, the first work was done on a few of the dwarf varieties. Sometime check with Oregon St., University of Oregon and Portland St. as there have been people affiliated with all 3 Universities and/or with the State of Oregon that have done some work with tissue culture on Acer Palmatum. There will not be much information shown online yet in regards to tissue culture on Acer Palmatum, so you may want to contact those Universities and give them an idea what your project is all about, where you are going with your research and they should be able to help provide some assistance for you. Brigg's Nursery - Olympia, Washington, is offering some tissue culture Acer Palmatum varieties for sale. http://www.briggsnursery.com Here is a link to their plant catalog. http://www.briggsnursery.com/Catalog.cfm You may want to check out this URL for this book. http://www.actahort.org/books/226/ The books from this URL may also be of help to you, especially the book I referenced below the URL. http://www.b4ubuild.com/books/reviews/man_woody_plants.shtml The Reference Manual of Woody Plant Propagation: From Seed to Tissue Culture : A Practical Working Guide to the Propagation of over 1100 Species, Va Jim
TC of A. palmatum Yes these are being done commercially; I have several hundred of them growing now, and buy from someone who does about 30k-40k plants a year from TC. He gets them from a TC lab in Oregon or Washington. I believe you could start from seed, or apical buds of young plants grown on a woody plant TC medium. Sorry I don't have a complete protocol for A. palmatum. I would try something like Anderson's Rhodo medium (or an Orchid medium for seeds) plus cytokinins & nutrients as for a woody plant micropropagation. You might snoop around at http://www.kitchenculturekit.com/Index.htm for some hints. If you find a protocol let me know. Also read this page on woody plant TC http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/tisscult/microprop/woodypl.html -Malcolm White
I ran two test trials using A. Palmatum Red Dragon buds in various media. Unfortunately my data has been inconclusive due to contamination near 100%. I have been working in a flow hood, sterilizing surfaces with 1/10 bleach, and explants with Alcohol in addition to 20 minutes stirred in 1/10 bleach. I have determined that the buds are my source of contamination. I'm still taking shots in the dark, so if you have any suggestions I would appreciate it. Below is a picture of one of my buds (6 weeks old) Thanks
Great school project! Do you have access to a stereo dissecting microscope? Firstly I should come clean and tell you I have never tried acer palmatum, so what follows may have no relevance at all, but here goes anyhow. Buds can be constructed a bit like an onion, and like onions most of the dirt is left behind with the outer layers. Try for the very last layer (I think it's called the apical bud) for your explant. Try node buds as well as tip buds. To be sure of your contamination source, "culture " your tools as well: prep your scalpel as if you were going to cut an explant, the cut it into a culture cell and culture that cell along with the actual explants. Do the same with your forceps and any other tools you use. I thought I saw a couple of empty cells in the background of your photo; if they are controls for contamination, that's part of it too. Good luck, Ralph
What you’re saying about the apical bud makes a lot of sense, I think I'll run a third trial to test the difference of using different sterilization techniques and using a whole bud vs. an apical bud on contamination. The tubes in the background were controls... I go the West Linn Thanks
I competed at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in Phoenix with my project. The project won second award in Botany. I didn't get that far in stating a protocol but conducted a series of experiments on everything from various explant types to variation in hormones. When doing background research I found that in vitro propagation of A. palmatum 'Osakii' has been successful using Lloyd and McCown’s Woody Plant Medium with the addition of .01 mg per liter of thidiazuron (TDZ). For rooting 1.0 mg per liter of IBA was found to be effective (J.L. Fernández-Lorenzo, M.I. Iglesias-DÃaz, O. Gutiérrez-Araujo 2000)
This link has pictures of other maples grown in vitro http://homepage2.nifty.com/chigyoraku/Jarosalb.html
What an ambitious project, Bernie! And congratulations on the 2nd place in Botany! Not too shabby in such a big competition. Good going! Keep us informed of your experiments in Micropropagation! I think it will probably replace other forms of propagation in the future. Although the cell structure of some plants (such as variegated forms) will produce unusual results sometimes. Oregon has several Tissue Culture Labs in the Willamette Valley - have you visited any of them? Wanda
FYI, Briggs Nursery recently moved to Elma, WA. Another good source for tissue cultured Acer in Olympia, Washington is Mountain Shadow Nursery. They are a wholesale nursery and micropropagation lab that specializes in custom propagation and tissue culture production of choice woody and herbaceous plants. Their web site is: http://www.mtshadow.com A list of their plants can be found at: http://www.mtshadow.com/pdbm/list David
Of course, right in your neighborhood, practically, is Terra Nova nursery, which is on Macksburg Road just south of Canby. Their work is mostly new intro's of perennials, but I have heard they are expanding their R&D dept, and you might be able to find someone who can give you some pointers. They have been very cordial in helping the Canby High Ag Dept's microprop lab in the past -- even employed some of the students. Also, the Ag teacher who originally developed all the TC at Canby is now teaching Ag at Tillamook and could be a good resource. Both my daughters were involved in his classes back in 1997 to 2001 and I can remember that there were several protocols developed to deal with contamination carried in bud scales.
Does tissue culture require using tissue from a bud? i know someone who has a (15 year?) old Viridis and the rootstock has some amazing bark. He wants to propagate it but can't get it to sucker to produce scion.
