Shoots that have short lengths may present low percentage of survival if they are directly grown on rooting media, or give rise to low quality seedlings for the acclimatization phase. The objective of this study was to evaluate the in vitro elongation of Eucalyptus dunnii minicuttings under different concentrations of giberellic acid. Minicuttings were prepared and inoculated under aseptic conditions on MS nutritive medium with half of the salt concentration (¹/2 MS). We used fixed concentrations of NAA (0.5 mg L-1) and BAP (0.1 mg L-1) varying GA3 according to the treatment. The experiment was conducted in a randomized design, using a 6 x 4 factorial scheme, where the levels of factor "A" refer to different genotypes and the levels of factor B, the concentrations of GA3 (0.0; 0.2; 0.4, and 0.8 mg L-1), each replicate was composed of a flask containing three explants. Thirty days after in vitro culture, evaluations were performed. For most genotypes, the absence of GA3 produced the highest number of elongated shoots for explant and a longer length of elongated shoots. In general, genotypes with the highest number of shoots also had larger shoots. The non-addition of GA3 to the nutritive medium did not promote calli formation, reaching over 50% in the use of higher concentration of GA3 tested (0.80 mg L-1). The calli formation was different in different genotypes. Gibberellic acid (GA3) has no effect on in vitro elongation of Eucalyptus dunnii. In the presence of GA3 genotypes reduce the number of elongated shoots and shoot length, increasing the formation of calli. The genotypes of Eucalyptus dunnii evaluated present differently in relation to in vitro elongation, which is able to be selected.
Giberellic acid; tissue culture; micropropagation; clonal forestry; plant growth regulators
