Hazel Fritz

The research objective of this project is to examine the factors affecting root production in agar media on shoots and calli from a genotype of flax, R10.2.2(AAS). Tissue culturing is done to create new plants from preexisting plant tissue in a sterile environment. It is used to produce clones from a piece of plant tissue, this allows for a better and more efficient way to reproduce plants instead of traditional plant propagation. Currently the main research barrier for this project is the lack of data and literature on flax in tissue culture, there is only one report that briefly summarizes the methods used to tissue culture flax and this paper is from 1976(Gamborg and Shyluk, 1976). This project is testing flax shoot and calli generation in tissue culture and subsequent rooting rates. The research questions posed for this project is how do success rates compare in the production of calli that have been tissue cultured in concentrations of BA and IBA? How do the rooting success rates compare between shoots that have been tissue cultured in rooting media and those that have not been tissue cultured in rooting media? The null hypothesis for this project is that there is no difference in calli production rates among tissue-cultured media with varying concentrations of BA and IBA; and there is no difference in rooting success rate among tissue-cultured and non-tissue cultured shoots. Data will be collected biweekly through photographs of shoots, calli, and roots. Additional data will be collected on: the rate of contamination and when each shoot and callus begin producing roots, the number taken out of culture for rooting, and the % rooting of all treatments. This data after analysis, will demonstrate the success of these experiments and direct future efforts for asexual propagation.