Abstract

The study focused on the possibility of using chitosan in the culture medium for propagating strawberry plants by tissue culture while ensuring reduced culture contamination and increased plantlets growth. The growing tip of the strawberry plant Ruby Gem were cut, superficially sterilized and then planted in the MS medium treated with different concentrations of chitosan (0, 5, 10, 15 mg L-1). The results showed that adding chitosan to the growth medium in the stage of vegetative branches formation was effective in reducing contamination to 10%, increasing the percentage of open buds by 100%, and the average number of branches to 2.75 branches, which increased with increasing the concentration to 10 mg L-1. When it came to branch length, there was no change between the normal medium and the medium that had chitosan added to it. But the amount of stems, leaves, fresh weight, and dry weight were very different between the two media. This was because the amount of chitosan changed these things. The amount of chitosan that was 10 mg L-1 had the most branches, the freshest weight, and the least dry weight. The average was 6.66 branches, 3.96 g of fresh weight, and 0.30 g of dry weight. The group that got 5 mg L-1 had the most leaves, with an average of 5.33 a branch. The best rate was seen in the treatment that had the fewest leaves—2.66 per branch. Put the branch in the medium that had 15 mg L-1 of chitosan added to it. The results showed that supplementing the nutrient medium with different concentrations of chitosan significantly affected the rooting percentage of vegetative branches, the average number of roots and root length with significant differences among the concentrations used. The chitosan at 10 mg L-1 resulted in significantly higher rates of rooting percentage (80%), the number of roots (8.10 root plantlet-1 and the root length (10.20 cm), respectively.