investigate the possibility of using medicinal plant’s seeds substitute for agar gel in plant tissue culture and determine the optimal practical conditions of them

background & aim: investigating the possibility of using medicinal plant’s seeds substitute for agar gel in plant tissue culture and determining the optimal practical conditions of them is the aim of this study. experimental: in order to study the new gelling agents for using in plant tissue culture, we designed a tow part experiment by means of the seeds of medicinal plants such as linum usitatissimum l., citrus medica l., lepidium sativum l. and plantago ovata forssk. these experiments were carried out at the tissue culture lab of the agricultural biotechnology research institute of iran, in 2010. each experiment was conducted as a completely randomized design with three replications. in first experiment, we were cultured explants of stevia rubiana on prepared ms medium with different concentrations of four kinds of seeds (1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 g) instead of agar and control (use of agar with no seed). second experiment was carried out to assess the best amount of planta ovata’s seed in prepared standard ms medium. results & discussion:  the highest value for all investigated factors was observed with planta ovata. the results showed that 1 g of planta ovata’s seed + charcoal is the best treatment for growing all parameters in stevia explants, and it might be a good advice to use of planta ovata’s seeds instead of agar in near future. industrial and practical recommendations: according to the findings of this study, using planta ovata’s seed can be recommended because of having mucilage as an alternative agar for gelling in plant tissue culture.