GROWTH AND ROOTING SYSTEM OF ACACIA MANGIUM OBTAINED BY TISSUE CULTURE

• Main Authors: SUPRIYANTO, IWAN SETIAWAN, M.I. UMBOH
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: SEAMEO, BIOTROP 1991-01-01
• Series: Biotropia: The Southeast Asian Journal of Tropical Biology
• Online Access: http://journal.biotrop.org/index.php/biotropia/article/view/189/158

Since 1980/1981, the government of Indonesia through the Ministry of Forestry has started to reforest logged-over, alang-alang, unproductive areas and to convert them to Forest Industry Plantation. The target is 300 000 ha per year. It means, 750 million seedlings should be provided per year (planting distance 2 m x 2 m). The tree species to be planted in forest industry plantation should have shorter life cycle (8 - 10 years), good stem-form, good rooting system, and should be fast growing. Acacia mangium has been selected as one of the important tree species for forest industry plantation due to its growth, quality of fiber wood (pulp and paper industry) and rooting system (produce a lot of secondary root and nitrogen fixater) (Soebardjo 1986). The reforestation of logged-over Dipterocarp forests in Malaysia with A. mangium has also been considered (Appanah and Weinland 1989). Generally, reforestation with A. mangium is done with seedlings obtained by seed germination. A. mangium produce a lot of seeds but its production is still limited by the season, while the conventional method of vegetative propagation through cuttings gave very low percentage of rooted-cuttings (1%) (Umboh and Syamsul Yani 1989). The micropropagation of A. mangium through tissue culture is a promising method. The production of A. mangium plantlets through that method has been done at the Forest Genetic Laboratory, Tropical Forest Biology, SEAMEO BIOTROP (Situmorang 1988, Umboh 1988, Umboh et al. 1989, 1990). These rooted-plantlets (plantlings) were first put in the green house (acclimatization) before planting in the field. Field tests of some agricultural plants have been done but information on forest trees species is still lacking because the production of plantlings through tissue culture is still limited as there are still problems of their rooting. In fact, the progress of reproducing woody plants by tissue culture has been much slower than with herbaceous plants. The major reason for this limited success with forest trees appears to be due to lack of efforts and because it takes longer time than herbaceous plants (Durzan and Campbell 1974). Generally, rooted-cuttings or rooted-plantlets do not produce tap root, but secondary roots only. The most frequent origin of adventitious roots are the cambium, phloem and pericycle. It is less frequent for