Lydiane Kyte;John Kleyn. Plants from Test Tubes: An Introduction to Micropropagation (p. 75) states an incredibly simple medium to replace MS:

Table Sugar: 1/8th Cup

Tap Water: 1 Cup

Nutrient Solution (1/4 tsp 10-10-10 fertilizer to 1 gal tap water): 1/2 Cup

Inositol Tablet (250mg): 1/2 Tablet

Vitamin Tablet with Thiamine: 1/4 Tablet

Agar Flakes (Food Grade from Health Store): 2 Table Spoons

Reference: M. Bridgen 1986

He successfully propagated Nephrolepis exaltata, african violet, and Tradescantia fluminensis wiht this medium. Good luck!

MS medium is universally used in plant tissue culture, because it is thought to be the best. However please note that for many plants/ explants it might be "too rich" in nutrients, so it still works after 2- or 4- fold dilution!

at the university we used MS medium because it seems to be the best .

For Arabidopsis culture we also always use 1/2 MS salt concentration!

it is not necessary to replace all constituents. The most expensive ingredients are agar and sucrose. You can replace agar by cheap substrate like cotton/paper bridge in liquid medium and ordinary sugar for sucrose. Use diluted 1/2 or 1/3 medium to further reduce the cost. You can use polybags for glass vessels.

It is depended on what kind of tissue culture you want to do.

MS medium is extensively used in plant tissue culture as it is a very balanced medium. You can reduce the cost by replacing the ready-made available medium by the individual salts in the same quantity. You can prepare the stocks of these salts. In our lab we do the same.

MS medium is most commonly used in regeneration of plants from any part like cell, tissue and other organs through plant tissue culture. Ms media is economical as compared to other media like White media. It may be used 1/4th concentration in regeration of plants organs having high ammount of nutritions like shoot apex etc. According to yours requirement and experiences any one may remove some components of medium.

I m agree with Dr. Peter Richardson.... use indiviudal minerals + common table sugar instead of anlytical sucrose + use cotton bed, aspaghol and coir as alternatives of Agar which is most expensive item in MS medium, use tap water instead of double distilled water (note: it is not usually recommended but u can use this in commercial production of banana and pineapple....results could be litle bit vary) + for hormones ..its up to the plant species which u r tissue culturing....

I am agree with many of writers. Yes it is advisable to prepare your own stock solution rather than using readymade media available with different companies. Another thing you can try is instead of searching for the alternative of MS medium, search for companies supply the same constituent at cheaper rate. If you want to use it for commercial purpose, purity may be compromised a little.

Hearty thanks for all your comments and suggestions! pleasure!.. we will definitely imply your suggestions in our lab. !

In our laboratory we use modified MS medium. In this medium we use 412.5 mg L-1 ammonium nitrate, 950 mg L-1 potassium nitrate. Try to use this medium.

Plz visit http://www-pub.iaea.org/mtcd/publications/pdf/te_1384_web.pdf

You can use food grade agar, works very good and it's not so expensive as the so call "plant cell culture agar" or the "purified agar"... The food grade agar is already purified :)

Lydiane Kyte;John Kleyn. Plants from Test Tubes: An Introduction to Micropropagation (p. 75) states an incredibly simple medium to replace MS:

Table Sugar: 1/8th Cup

Tap Water: 1 Cup

Nutrient Solution (1/4 tsp 10-10-10 fertilizer to 1 gal tap water): 1/2 Cup

Inositol Tablet (250mg): 1/2 Tablet

Vitamin Tablet with Thiamine: 1/4 Tablet

Agar Flakes (Food Grade from Health Store): 2 Table Spoons

Reference: M. Bridgen 1986

He successfully propagated Nephrolepis exaltata, african violet, and Tradescantia fluminensis wiht this medium. Good luck!

I have patented a very cheap medium for PTC. if u r interested plz contact me. This is almost 8 times cheaper than ready MS medium from Hi Media, India.

Is there any alternative for replacing ammonium nitrate

Mr. Kakoli, Please share the patent no. of your medium.

Dear Sathish

Liquid Culture System is cost effective if it works in your system since seventy five percent of the cost involves is due to Agar-agar powder. This has no nutrient value!

You can prepare your own stock solutions. its cheaper.

you can find a simple media for tissue culture in : plant tissue culture practices by acram m. taji, william a. dodd, richard l. williams. http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/11243172?selectedversion=NBD9225569

If you are using ready to use media, for example 4.4 g/L MS that used in preperation is very expensive way. You can prepare forever your own stock solutions, once you purchased each components. It is not problematic and safest way.

check the references from Bridgen 1986 as she has previously stated below

Guys... Thanks a lot for your kind response...! :)

MS medium is a rich medium so one can use half strength or MS1/4. This can be coupled with liquid medium (if hyperhydricity is not a problem) to bring down the price dramatically.

Hope this helps.

MS media powder are available in market that is also cheaper than the cost of the chemical you may use that for your practice. You need not have to prepare the stock and also you need not have to spent a lot of money in purchasing all the chemicals needed for MS 1962 medium.

I recommend you to prepare your own stock solutions for Macro and Micro elements, Vitamins and Fe-EDTA. You can easily keep the high concentrated stocks at 4 C. Most of the time you can also use MS/2 media instead of MS.