The work had the purpose to determine the best type of explant and its best time of collection aiming to establish the in vitro culture for pear. In the first trial, pear buds and meristems from Carrick and Garber cultivars were isolated 28 days after the beginning of mother plants shooting. In the second trial, meristems from Carrick, Garber and Smith pear cultivars were isolated at 28, 35, 42, 49 and 56 days after shooting. The culture medium used was the MS salts added with BAP (4.44muM), NAA (0.05muM) and GA3 (0.29muM). After the inoculation the explants were subjected to a dark room for four days at temperature 25 ± 2ºC and then transferred to a growth room in a 16 - hour photoperiod, 25µmo<IMG SRC="http:/img/fbpe/cr/v32n4/a05img01.gif">es.m-2.s-1 radiation and at 25 ± 2ºC. It could be concluded that: (i) for the in vitro establishment of the Carrick cultivar buds and meristems could be used, although for Garber cv., meristem is the best explant; and (ii) the time of meristem isolation showed a linear behavior to establish percentage achieving 92.9% for the meristems collected at 56 days after shooting.
horticulture; tissue culture; Pyrus; meristems; buds; in vitro
