Evaluation of difficulties in hydroponic culture of Arabidopsis thaliana and suggestion of two new cultivation methods

Arabidopsis thaliana is a suitable model plant for genetic and molecular biology studies in higher plants. However, its hydroponic culture for biochemical and physiological studies is a challenge due to small size, capillary roots and little biomass at maturity. Several cultural systems have been suggested for Arabidopsis thaliana hydroponic culture, each having special advantages and disadvantages. Due to the difficulties of these cultural systems, two simple and economical hydroponic cultural systems are provided for Arabidopsis thaliana. In the first system, seeds were planted in solid MS culture medium in plates and then the seedlings were transplanted in polyethylene pots including ½ Hoagland or Gibeaut nutrient solution. In the second system, seeds were directly planted in a small drop of agar that was placed on the pores of pot’s lid. Several parameters such as root length, fresh and dry weight of roots and shoots and shoot to root ratio were compared in plants cultivated in different hydroponics cultural systems and plants grown in mixture of soil and moss as a common cultivation method. The results indicated that the greatest growth was obtained in plants grown in transplanting seedling method with ½ Hoagland nutrient solution and this method could be suggested for Arabidopsis thaliana hydroponic culture.