Gerber Daisy Tissue Culture

---

I recently bought a bouquet of flowers and was curious if I could propagate the gerber daisies in it using tissue culture. I landed on a great Youtube video describing the process and decided to give it a try.

We started with the following specimen.

---

The first part of the process is removing the petals and hairs. The petals are removed to expose the capitulum, which is the part of the plant that contains the flowers. The hairs are removed because they can harbor contaminants, making it difficult to establish a clean initial culture.

---

Once the capitulum is exposed and cleaned, it is sectioned into pieces to create our explants. Each section should contain some part of the very middle of the capitulum, as this is where the meristematic tissue is located - which is responsible for cell division and growth.

---

Finally the cut end of the section must be positioned directly inside the culture media, and approximately 50% of the explant should be submerged within the media for optimal regeneration.

---

Resources

• Dr. Ather Zaman - Micropropagation of Gerbera
• Commercial Multiplication of Gerbera from Young Capitulum Explants
• Effect of genotype, explant size, position, and culture medium on shoot generation of Gerbera jamesonii by receptacle transverse thin cell layer culture

NOTE: The explants were sanitized in a 1:10 bleach solution for a few minutes before being placed in the growth media.