In <i>Vitro</i>Clonal Propagation from Adult Material of a Savannah Species of Socio-Economic Importance: <i>Annona senegalensis</i>Pers.

Annona senegalensis (Pers.) or Annone from Senegal is a species found in the West African savannah and para-littoral sands. It offers real possibilities of socio-economic use, particularly in the medical, nutritional, ecosystem conservation and poverty alleviation fields. However, this wild species remained not fully exploited despite its potentialities. As a result, there is a need to regenerate this species;therefore, the in vitro propagation from adult material was undertaken. For this purpose, axillary nodes from plant regrowth taken from elderly subjects were aseptically introduced into different media enriched or not with phytohormones. Among the 3 culture media tested, that of Murashige and Skoog (MS, 1962) was the most reactive and made it possible to develop a micropropagation protocol for adult material of A. senegalensis. Thus, the introduction of these explants in media containing cytokinins (BAP and Kinetin) significantly increased the reactivity compared to media without hormones. If the best average numbers of shoots (2.3) and nodes (5.3) are obtained in MS + BAP 2 mg·L−1, with a reactivity of 91.66%, the addition of 0.1 mg·L−1 NAA gave the best average length (8.25 cm) of vitroplants. An induction time of 3 days into darkness with IBA at 50 mg·L−1, followed by a transfer to hormone-free expression medium (MS/2) under light, resulted in a rooting rate of 58.33%. After the gradual weaning of the young plants in a mini-greenhouse, under shade for 3 weeks, 50% of the plants survived. This in vitro regeneration protocol can therefore be adopted for the clonal propagation of adult material of A. senegalensis. However, the rooting rate can be improved by trying other hormonal combinations based on auxins or by considering ex-vitro rooting during shade weaning.