Microbial contamination is one of the most important problems in plant tissue culture and various methods are employed to reduce it. Microbial contamination is an important barrier in the development of Gerbera tissue culture and micropropagation procedure even after disinfecting with normal methods. In this experiment the antifungal and antibacterial activity of nano-silver fluids was investigated in gerbera tissue culture and the effects of four different nano-silver concentration (25, 50, 100 and 200mg L-1) in four soaking time of explants (15, 30, 60 and 180 min) were compared with two control treatments that included disinfecting explants with soaking them in Sodium Hypochlorite and Sodium Hypochlorite followed by Mercury Chloride aqueous solution. The explants were cultured on dedicated MS medium to evaluate the effects of NS on viability and other apparent properties. The analysis of variance resulted that there are significant differences in contamination rate, both among treatments and between control and treatments. The 200 mg L-1 nano-silver solution had successfully controlled bacterial and fungal contamination and had no undesired effects on regeneration of plantlets. According to reports on high levels of contamination in Gerbera tissue culture and also the hazardous environmental effects of mercury chloride, so nano-silver solution can be used as a low risk fungicide and bactericide in Gerbera capitulum tissue culture.

Keywords