Temporary immersion and stationary bioreactors for mass propagation of true-to-type highbush, half-high, and hybrid blueberries (Vaccinium spp.)

ABSTRACT

True-to-type propagules in half-high, highbush, and hybrid blueberries (Vaccinium L. spp.) were produced using stationary (SB) and temporary immersion bioreactor (TIB) systems containing a liquid medium. Multiple shoots were produced in vitro from nodal segments of blueberry cultivars ‘St. Cloud’ and ‘Polaris’, and of six blueberry hybrids obtained from crossing between half-high/highbush and lowbush blueberries. Shoot proliferation was best in a liquid medium containing 4.6 µM zeatin in both TIB and SB systems, but the performance was genotype dependent. Shoot proliferation was better in hybrids than in cultivars. Although SB produced longer shoots with more leaves per shoot in most of the genotypes, TIB-derived shoots were more vigorous and rooted better under ex vitro condition. Liquid culture-derived elongated shoots were rooted ex vitro by treating with indole-3-butyric acid (39.4 mM) before planting on a 3 peat:2 perlite (v/v) medium. Micropropagules were acclimatized and maintained in a greenhouse with 80−90% survival rate of rooted plantlets. Expressed sequence tag (EST)-polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and EST- and genomic-simple sequence repeat (SSR) marker assay formed a homogenous monomorphic banding pattern in the in vitro-derived and donor control plants proving the clonal fidelity of liquid-culture-derived micropropagated plants.

KEYWORDS:

• Bioreactors
• blueberries
• clonal fidelity
• EST-PCR and SSR markers
• shoot proliferation

Acknowledgements

The excellent technical help from Darryl Martin and Glen Chubbs is gratefully acknowledged.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This is Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada St. John’s Research and Development Centre [grant number 233].