Priya Y. Keerthi’s scientific contributions

Wrightia tinctoria Roxb. (WTR) is a medicinal plant with soft wood that belongs to Apocynaceae family. The therapeutic constituents of this plant are used in treating many human ailments like psoriasis, diabetics and cancer. In view of low percent of natural regeneration, over exploitation due to its medicinal (treatment of human ailments) and commercial importance (toy making and pala indigo dye) and the hurdles faced by the Etikoppaka toy making industry (Vizag, A.P. India), there is dier need for conservation and production of propagules of this valuable soft woody and medicinally important tree. This study is undertaken to optimize and develop large scale regeneration and hardening protocol in Vadlamudi, Guntur Dt., A.P. using nodal explants of fifteen days old (in vitro) seedling. The nodal explants are inoculated on MS media amended with BAP (1.5 mg/L) + NAA (0.1 mg/L), induced 14 shoots per explant in 30 days with a length of 5.2 cm and 85-90% shoot initiation. The shoots when inoculated on Murashige Skoog media reinforce with IBA (3.5mg/L), showed eight roots per one shoot explant with maximum length of 6.9 cm. 99 % shoots initiated roots within 21 days of shoot inoculation. After 28 days of rooting, the plantlets are acclimatized to natural conditions through different stages and the % of survival rates of plantlets in the natural conditions was found to be 55 %.