ABSTRACT. Pear is one of the most important temperate fruit crops. To propagate a reasonable number of plants in the shortest possible time, different in vitro multiplication systems were evaluated:solid media and temporary immersion bioreactors with two different cultivation media in each system. Automation of micropropagation in bioreactors has been considered as a possible way of reducing propagation cost, but it depends upon better understanding of physiological and biochemical responses of plant to the culture microenvironment and an optimization of specific physical and chemical culture conditions to control the morphogenesis of pear plants in these systems. The conventional media of Murashige and Skoog (MS) was compared with an enriched media in three elements:calcium, magnesium and potassium, where the normal amount of those elements in the MS was increased 2.5 times. In all of the cases 4.44 µM of benzyladenine was used. In solid medium, significant differences in plant high were observed; the best plant size was achieved with the media enriched with salts compared with conventional composition (MS conventional). The highest multiplication rate (24) was observed in temporary immersion bioreactors with media enriched with salts, while the lowest was in solid media with MS conventional composition (4). In none of the cases was hyperhidricity observed. @ International Society for Horticultural Science.
Instituto Nacional de Investigación Agropecuaria