Nutrition and organ differentiation in tissue cultures of sugarcane, a monocotyledon.

Sugarcane tissues subcultured for over 4 years had lost the capability to differentiate shoots. In freshly isolated tissues from 3 cultivars, we readily obtained shoot differentiation on Murashige-Skoog medium, but shoot differentiation was lost, apparently irreversibly, after more than one subculture on a modified White's medium. Tissue from a fourth cultivar produced only roots. The tissue cultures of all cultivars studied have the capability to form roots regardless of the length of time in culture; root formation was enhanced by treatment with dalapon (2,2-dichloropropionic acid).