27 Sep 2022

How to Grow Bucephalandra In Tissue Culture?

Anjali Singh, MS

As a content and community manager, I leverage my expertise in plant biotechnology, passion for tissue culture, and writing skills to create compelling articles, simplifying intricate scientific concepts, and address your inquiries. As a dedicated science communicator, I strive to spark curiosity and foster a love for science in my audience.

Table of Contents

Introduction

If you have an aquarium at your house you know about the Buce plant. Right?

And, even if not, we are going to talk all about it in this article.

What’s so special about Buce?

Well. Why don’t we start with Buce being a popular and highly demanded aquarium plant? It’s mainly because they are easy to care for and when planted in an aquarium, it enhances its quality and prevents algae growth.

Scientifically, the buce plant is known as Bucephalandra. It belongs to the family of Araceae and so far around 30 species have been discovered in this genus. Most of these Buce species are found in Borneo. It usually grows in streams or rivers in the moist tropical forests as dense mats over stones and rocks.

The plant can range from 2 cm to 60 cm in height. The plant mostly creeps or roots and has a few or many leaves, which can either be tough or delicate. Leaves of the Buce plant come in different sizes ranging from oblong, linear, elliptic, oblanceolate, or ovate with colors ranging from dark blue-green to green. However, the backs of leaves can also show white to yellow to red tinges or spots.

The inflorescence of the Buce plant can either be solitary or in pairs or as many and fruits are berry with round or ellipsoid shapes. The seeds of the plant are dispersed through a splash-cup mechanism that ejects seeds when water splashes into the funnel-shaped lower spathe.

Source: The 2HR Aquarist

This article covers the propagation of the Buce plant, why the tissue culture technique is preferred over the traditional techniques and a protocol of tissue culture of the Buce plant.

Tissue Culture of Bucephalandra

Bucephalandra is the most promising plant of the Aracacea family for several reasons: small size, slow growth, variety of shapes and colors, and potential to even grow on driftwood and stones. The plant has a lot of similarities with the Anubias and Cryptocoryne species.

The export value of Bucephalandra is around $300/rhizome. Because of their beauty and high economic value they are directly exploited from their habitat, which has risked the existence of the plant species.

However, one limitation of growing such plants, through vegetative techniques and exporting them, is pathogen infection, such as nematodes or other bacterial or fungal infections.

Thus, to overcome the limitation and meet commercial demands and phytosanitary regulations, tissue culture seems to be an effective approach. Not only does the tissue culture technique help growers produce disease-free plants, but it also allows them to grow plants faster (irrespective of their season) at a large scale in a small space.

There are two ways to grow plants using tissue culture techniques: somatic embryogenesis and organogenesis. During somatic embryogenesis, explants (a small part of the plants or a few tissues) are induced to form somatic embryos through an intermediary callus formation. In organogenesis, explants are directly induced to form organs and then the whole plantlet with roots and shoots.

Protocol for Tissue Culture of Bucephalandra

Here’s a protocol of micropropagation of Bucephalandra taken from this study.

• Collect shoot tip or nodal explant from a disease-free, healthy mother plant.
• Sterilize the explants using 70% alcohol and Clorox.
• Wash the explant thoroughly using sterile distilled water. (Repeat the step thrice).
• Prepare a culture medium using Murashige and Skoog (MS) media, supplemented with 6-Benzylaminopurine (BAP) 2mg/L, 3%sucrose, and 0.2% phytagel.
• Incubate the cultures in the culture room at 25 ± 20C with a radiation intensity of 1.000–2.000 lux for 16 hours.
• After a couple of weeks, you will start noticing growth in your cultures.
• Now, prepare a multiplication media with Murashige and Skoog (MS) media supplemented with BA 2 mg/l and Thidiazuron 0.1 mg/l, 3%sucrose, and 0.2% phytagel.
• Incubate the cultures in the culture room at 25 ± 20C with a radiation intensity of 1.000–2.000 lux for 16 hours.
• After 2-4 weeks, you will observe shoot development in the cultures.
• When you observe shoots with some leaves, prepare them to transfer to a rooting medium.
• Prepare the rooting medium using Murashige and Skoog (MS) media supplemented with IBA 2 mg/l, 3%sucrose, and 0.2% phytagel.
• Incubate the cultures in the culture room at 25 ± 20C with a radiation intensity of 1.000–2.000 lux for 16 hours.
• After 4 weeks, you will observe significant root growth in your plantlets.
• Prepare your plantlets for acclimatization.

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You can either book a one-on-one consultation call or a physical visit to your lab. We help you at every step of the tissue culture process, ranging from establishing a tissue culture lab to preventing contamination problems or any specific challenges in your process.

So, visit plantcelltechnology.com today and learn more about our products and services and how they help you excel in your tissue culture processes.

Happy Culturing!