The Paulownia tree, much of Chinese native species, shows a great potential in Nepal, due to its high quality wood and fast growing tendency, in terms of economy , forestry and environment. As being recently known as an important tree, the need and demand in the market is much more in the recent years. Thus, our experiment deals with the optimization of medium for rapid propagation of Paulownia plant through nodal culture. The micro propagated plants were then subjected to molecular characterization to check any polymorphism observed which is not desired in micropropagation.
Explants was developed for Paulownia tomentosa and Paulowniaelongata from the seed culture to reduce the contamination sub-culture. The Murashige and Skoog medium was supplemented with different combinations of phyto hormones (BAP, NAA). However, Murashige and Skoog medium containing 1mg/l Benzyl amino purine and 0.1mg/l naphthalene acetic acid was found to be best for nodal culture.
Qualitative test, Fehling’s, Glycosides, Salkowski’s, Polyphenols and tannins, Flavonoids, Saponins, Sterols, Terpenoids, Alkaloids and Caumarins test for the screening of phytochemicals present in Paulownia plants were performed where the presence of glycoside, saponins, steroids, terpenoids alkaloids, coumarins was detected while polyphenols, tannins and flavonoids were absent.
Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA Markers were used to study genetic fidelity of the micro propagated plants of Paulownia tomentosa and Paulowniaelongata via nodal culture as well as the plant from green house. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) with 10 decamer arbitrary OPA primers were performed and the amplified bands were visualized using gel electrophoresis. The RAPD markers OPA 9 and OPA 10 produced good amplification and did not show any polymorphism among the micro propagated plants, to obtain a desire result.
