Abstract: Miscanthus sinensis has high biomass yield and is currently considered a leading energy crop candidate around the world. We performed conventional tissue culture with immature inflorescence tissue from 8 genotypes of M. sinensis and found distinct frequencies in callus induction, embryogenic-like callus induction and embryogenic-like callus differentiation. In particular, W89 and W70 showed significantly high callus induction, at 91.7% and 89.1%, respectively, whereas explants of W69 had a brownish appearance, with barely any callus. Furthermore, W89, W70 and W17 showed relatively high percentages of embryogenic-like callus differentiation (50%) with easy plantlet regeneration. Callus induction rates were affected by lignin level. The established system for efficient micropropagation could be used for genetic engineering, improvement and plant propagation of M. sinensis, and 2 genotypes, W89 and W70, may be model materials for plant tissue culture.

Key words: Miscanthus sinensis, genotype, tissue culture, embryogenic callus, lignin