Abstract
Excised leaf discs of three Brassica species, B. oleracea, B. napus, and B. campestris were induced to produce adventitious buds and subsequently entire plants by culture on media with specific combinations of 6-benzylaminopurine (BAP) and α-naphthylacetic acid (NAA). Each species required a particular hormone concentration for optimum growth and differentiation: B. oleracea, BAP 10 mg−1 and NAA 1 mg 1−1; B. napus, BAP 10 mg 1−1 and NAA 10 mg 1−1; B. campestris, BAP 1 mg 1−1 and NAA 10 mg 1−1. In a more detailed study on one of these species, namely B. oleracea, the relative influence of other media components such as amino acids and other organic additives was examined. It was also found that the source and size of the explant greatly affected the growth response, as did the size of the culture vessel. The regenerated plants dislayed a range of ploidy as well as phenotypic abnormalities. Findings are discussed in relation to results from other tissue culture systems.