The Heirloom rose, a beautiful and intensely fragrant
rose with a wide range of colours, was used throughout
the experiment. Nodal explants containing lateral
buds of actively field-grown ‘Heirloom’ roses were
cut into 3 cm length segments, washed in running
water to remove the dirt, and used for multiplication
experiments. To sterilize the surface, these segments
were treated with 70% ethanol for 15 s and then
immersed in 20% (v/v) Clorox solution of commercial
laundry bleach (5.25% NaOCl) containing 2 drops of
Tween-20 emulsifier to aid wetting for 20 min. After
the surface decontamination was done, the sterilized
explants were rinsed 2–3 times with sterile distilled
water to remove the disinfecting solution. They were
trimmed to 1 cm lengths prior to transfer to the culture
medium.