medium appeared to be detrimental to the culture initiation since it reduced buds formation, shoot growth (Table 2) and root induction (Table 3). The highest number (5) of formed buds was obtained for MS medium free from growth regulators, while the lowest (1) was obtained with MS medium added with 0.5 mg/l BAP and 1mg/l
NAA(Table 2). Moreover, buds were induced faster on hormone free MS medium: 1 week versus 3 weeks for MS medium added with hormones. Besides, the shoot induction was reduced by the use of growth regulators. It decreased from 90.5% for MS control medium to 32.2% when adding 0.5 mg/l BAP and 1mg/l NAA to MS medium (Table 2), which corresponds to a 3-fold reduction. Either, addition of BAP alone or in combination with NAA or IBA to the MS medium did not enhance shoot induction of kenaf explants. We found that the increase of the BAP concentration in the medium resulted in a reduction in shoot induction (Table 2). Similar to sprouting, shoot length was also significantly affected by different BAP, NAA and IBA concentrations in media (Table 2). Explants cultured on medium with plant growth regulators were significantly shorter compared to explants cultured on hormone-free medium (Fig. 1A). Furthermore, high concentration of BAP (2 mg/l) combined with NAA or IBA reduced significantly the shoot length (Fig. 1B). When adding high concentrations of BAP (2 mg/l) to theMSmedium, shoot length did not pass beyond 2.3 cm, while in MS control medium it reached 8cm(Table 2).