ESTABLISHMENT OF IN VITRO PROPAGATION OF Hibiscus cannabinus (KENAF)

Hibiscus cannabinus or commonly known as kenaf is a versatile plant that serves as resources for numerous manufacturing and livestock industries. Originally planted in West Africa, kenaf is now distributed in many countries including Malaysia as its fibres were proved to be an ultimate alternative resource for major industries such as automotive, paper and bio-composite. In fact, in Malaysia, due to its adaptation to wide range of climatic conditions, kenaf has potentially be chosen as a new industrial crop replacing tobacco. There have been many interests on regenerating kenaf via micropropagation as the demand for this crop has been increasing tremendously since the past decades. Hence, this study is initiated with the objective to establish in vitro propagation system of H. cannabinus. The callus induction was achieved on Murashige and Skoog (MS) media supplemented with different concentrations of benzylaminopurine (BAP). It was observed that calli were successfully induced on all the BAP concentrations tested. The optimum concentration of BAP that induced the healthiest and biggest calli was 3.0 mg/l. Shoot and root induction from the calli were attempted using MS medium supplemented with different combinations and concentrations of IBA, BA and GA3. From the seven treatments, three treatments successfully induced formation of shoot; treatment T3 (MS + 1.0 mg/l IBA + 2.5 mg/l BA), treatment T5 (MS + 0.1 mg/l IBA + 2.0 mg/l BA + 0.3 mg/l GA3) and treatment T6 (MS + 1.0 mg/l IBA + 2.5 mg/l BA + 0.3 mg/l GA3). The results obtained in this study can paved for more research on tissue culture of H. cannabinus.