Studies on In vitro Surface Sterilisation and Antioxidants on Pomegranate (Punica granatum L.) cv. Bhagwa

Pomegranate, regarded as the “Fruit of Paradise”, is one of the important fruit crops of tropical and subtropical regions. Pomegranate fruits are delicious and possess significant nutritional and medicinal benefits. Due to the increase in demand, the proliferation of pomegranate through tissue culture is essential to get high-quality planting material. However, microbial contamination in plant tissue culture is one of the bottlenecks for establishing aseptic cultures. Although multiple explant sterilisation methods have been developed for pomegranate, explant sterilisation methods can indeed vary from region to region due to the local environment and the mother plant. In the present study, 1-2 drops of tween 20 (20 min) + 500 mg/L carbendazim (30 min) + 500 mg/L streptomycin sulphate (10 min) + 100 mg/L citric acid (30 min) + 100 mg/L tebuconazole (folicur) (30 min) + 0.1% HgCl2 (1 min) + dipping explant after cutting the edges in sterile water (30 min) + dipping in 500 mg/L PVP (5 min) was found to be optimum in the prevention of microbial contamination with minimal cell death. Nodal segments-initiated callus at 54 days after culture, showing a callus induction percentage of 55.55% and a calli weight of 80 mg/explant.