Successful Regeneration of Sweet Pepper (Capsicum Annuum l.) in an Airlift Bioreactor: Effect of Medium Phase and Genotype

We investigated the regeneration of two Bulgarian sweet pepper cultivars (‘Hebar’ and ‘Stryama’) on solid and liquid culture medium. Liquid cultures were incubated in temporary immersion RITA ® airlift bioreactors. During a period of 60 days, culture in the liquid medium was associated with significantly increased shoot tip growth, number of lateral shoots, percentage of rooted plants and micropropagation coefficient, with essentially no callus formation. Regenerants from cultivar ‘Hebar’ exceeded those of cultivar ‘Stryama’ in all measured traits. A coefficient of micropropagation equal to 5.3 was observed for the superior cultivar. The results of the present study manifest the possible scale up of the micropropagations of this recalcitrant species, resulting in higher number of vigorous plants within a short period of time.