In Vitro Regeneration of Blueberry (Vaccinium corymbosum L.) ‘Biloxi' In Culture Media with N6-(2-isopentil) Adenina

Blueberry (Vaccinium corymbosum L.) is a plant fruit with special nutritious properties demanded in several countries around the world. The aim of this study was to evaluate the in vitro regeneration and growth of shoots of blueberry ‘Biloxi’ in culture media with different concentrations of N⁶-(2-isopentil) adenina (2iP). The establishment phase consisted of the culture of 1.5 cm-long internodal segments on Woody Plant Medium (WPM) supplemented with 0, 0.1, 0.32, 1.0, 3.16 y 10.0 µM of 2iP, and amended with 20 g/L of sucrose and 2.5 g/L of phytagel, and pH 5.2. Culture vessels were incubated in a chamber growth at 25°C during three weeks with a 16h light/8h darkness photoperiod. After in vitro shoots with a size of 2-3 cm were transferred to rooting medium consisting of WPM supplemented with 0, 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 µM of indole-3-acetic acid (AIA). Results showed that there was not a significant difference among the treatments of 2iP according to the shoot percentage and internodal distance variables, whose values oscillated from 80 to 98% and 0.4 to 0.5 cm, respectively. On the other hand, in media with 1, 3 and 10 µM of 2iP it was registered the highest shoot length and number of leaves, ranging from 2.6 to 2.8 cm and 6 and 7 leaves, respectively. Percentage of rooting and number of roots per shoot after six weeks were highest in shoots transferred to medium WPM supplemented with 8 and 10 µM of AIA, whose values were 54% and 61% and 2 and 3 roots respectively We conclude that multiplication phase of blueberry var. Biloxi is successfully achieved by the culture of internodal segments in media with 1 to 10 µM of 2iP. This protocol provides to our knowledge the first effort to develop an efficient strategy for the mass propagation of this blueberry variety.