The effects of plant growth regulators and explants on callus induction in Ajowan

Ajowan (Carum copticum) has been considered as an important medicinal plant because it contains many alkaloids such as Thymol. In vitro culture of Ajowan provides new tissue sources such as callus, cell suspension and seedlings to produce secondary metabolites. The present study describes callus production optimization procedures experiment that was a factorial experiment based on completely randomized design at three levels with four explants (root, shoot, leaf and coleoptile) on Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium supplemented with different concentrations of BAP (0.25, 0.5 and 1 mg/l) and 2,4-D(2, 4 and 8 mg/l). Comparison of means showed that the maximum callus production was obtained from shoot explants, the coleoptile and leaf explants were in the second orders. In overall, 0.25 mg /l BAP alone and also with 2, 4-D mg/l concentrations proved to be optimal for the production of maximum callus and also were more effect on callus weight, callus volume and callus color. The best explant based on callus weight was coleoptile explant and for callus volume was shoot explant. The result were shown that the effective hormone combination and explant was 0.25 mg /l BAP alone and also with 2, 4-D mg/l concentrations were more effect on callus induction and shoot explant, respectively.