A commercial scale micropropagation technology was developed in Finland for the silver birch (Betula pendula), which is an increasingly important raw material source for the forest industry.
Genotype affected more the success of initiation and multiplication rate than e.g. age of the mother tree or season. The clonal fidelity of the in vitro propagation system based on axillary proliferation has been high. When producing plantlets using adventitious tissue culture system one distinct variant was discovered. The field performance of the micropropagated plantlets during the first season in the nursery was slightly better than that of conventional seedlings.