Micropropagation of young and adult plants of cypress (Cupressus sempervirens L.)

A method is described to induce axillary bud proliferation, elongation and rooting in explants of cypress of different ages (i.e. 5-week-old seedlings, 15-year-old, and more than 150-year-old trees). Bud induction was realized on SH medium containing 5 ?M BA and 0.1 ?M NAA. The highest number of shoots per explant (4.5) was obtained with the material collected from the 5-week-old seedlings. For rooting, IBA or IAA treatments were effective, particularly those consisting of 7-d culture on medium containing 0.1 mM IBA. The age of the trees from which the initial explants were collected strongly affected all phases of the in vitro multiplication; proliferation rate, successive growth and rooting were highest for the explants collected from the youngest plants. Rooting resulted the most problematic step of the multiplication cycle: the explants collected from young plants rooted easily, while the material proliferated from aged trees gave very low rooting percentages