Micropropagation of Pinus pinea L

Stone pine (Pinus pinea L.) is an economically important tree in the Mediterranean area, and has a significant role in soil conservation, landscape architecture, and for its edible seeds. This makes many aspects of its management similar to an agronomic tree. The wide potential for improvement and the great economic value of the pine nuts requires utmost attention to develop genetic breeding programs. These programs are based on the identification of excellent genotypes by establishing clonal banks of different provenances. Due to the fact that conventional techniques of asexual propagation do not work with P. pinea, grafting is the only method available to propagate and genetically evaluate individual clones. However, grafting is far from being optimal. Evaluating the same clone grafted on different rootstocks generates high variability due to scion–rootstock interaction that varies production levels (Mutke et al., 2000). The use of clonal rootstocks could allow to even this interaction, enabling a much more reliable evaluation of each clone.