Proliferation of Axilary Buds - This approach of micropropagation utilizes cultures of either shoot tip or nodal explants on a medium supplemented with, usually, a cytokinin (e.g., 1­3 mg/I BAP) and often an auxin. The cytokinin stimulates pre-existing shoot buds present in the explants to develop into shoots. Each leaf on such shoots has an axillary bud. In many species, e.g., strawberry, these axillary buds are also stimulated to develop into shoots.

After some time (4-6 weeks), the axillary branching in a culture reaches the maximum. The individual shoots are then excised and subcultured onto fresh medium to initiate a new cycle of multiplication by axillary branching. In most plant species, each explant would produce 5-6 shoots in 4-5 weeks; this would give upto 510- 612 plants in one year from a single initial explant provided all the shoots produced could be cultured and there was 100% survival.