The Occurrence of Endogenous Bacteria in Birch Shoot Cultures

Abstract

The production of clonal material by micropropagation is becoming increasingly important to both the horticultural and forestry industries. One of the factors to be taken into consideration is that of bacterial contamination of stock cultures. Until recently this was believed to be principally due to the presence of exogenous bacteria. These contaminants would either be present due to an inadequate initial sterilization procedure or introduced during subsequent culture operations. The presence of endogenous bacteria in tissue cultures has been reported by Debergh (1, 2, 3). This paper describes the isolation and identification of an endogenous bacterium from shoot cultures of Betula pendula, Betulapubescens and Betula nana.