An investigation was conducted to study the effects of explant sources, plant growth regulators, carbohydrates and light conditions on indirect cormlet regeneration and the induction of embryogenic callus of freesia (Freesia × hybrida Bailey ‘Argenta’). Sections of two different types of explants, corms and pupae (cold storage-produced corms), were placed on Murashige and Skoog (MS) media containing different concentrations of plant growth regulators. The results showed that the highest percentage of callus induction (100%), the highest callus growth (15 mm diameter) and the best type of calli were achieved for pupa explants grown on the medium that contained 4 mg L−1 1-naphthaleneacetic acid (NAA) and 2 mg L−1 6-benzylaminopurine (BAP) in the dark. Increasing BAP up to 3 to 4.5 mg L−1 resulted in the maximum number of regenerated cormlets from 1 cm2 calli (2 cormlets) under light conditions. Overall, the best rooting of regenerated cormlets was achieved on MS media supplemented with 1 mg L−1 indole-3-butyric acid (IBA). In the next stage, high quality calli were subcultured on MS media containing sorbitol, sucrose, maltose and mannitol (0, 5, 10 and 15 g L−1). The results indicated that 15 g L−1 maltose was able to induce the highest percentage of embryogenic callus, with an average of 88.9% on media containing 2 mg L−1 BAP and 1 mg L−1 NAA.
