Using the Rejuvenation Phenomenon to Obtain Vegetative Progeny of Trees

Vegetative propagation provides the opportunity to scale up valuable plant material in the shortest possible time. It acquires particular importance in the cultivation of tree crops while preserving valuable biological and morphological varietal characteristics of individual specimens. The use of this approach allows for the rapid propagation of particularly valuable plants growing in parks and forests, while seed reproduction does not preserve their valuable hereditary traits. In this regard, the creation and improvement of reliable methods of vegetative propagation of woody species does not lose its relevance. As is known, vegetative propagation of trees is achieved in the juvenile phase of development and not at the maturity stage, which greatly limits the use of this approach. This situation can be overcome by using technologies based on the active use of rejuvenation, a phenomenon whose biological nature remains insufficiently studied to date. Nevertheless, considerable research experience has been accumulated in initiating rejuvenation, i.e., carrying out procedures for the artificial return of adult plants or their individual parts to a young state. This article provides an overview of technologies that allow the implementation of the process of switching the plant-development strategy from the maturity phase to the juvenile state. These include meristem cultivation, chemical treatment of plant material, severe pruning and hedging, use of root suckers and coppicing, initiation of axillary and epicormic bud development, grafting and micrografting, repeated subculturing, and somatic embryogenesis. For further successful development of this area, it is necessary to use an integrated approach based on a combination of omics technologies and methods of molecular genetics and molecular and cellular biology.