The traditional and most used medium in plant tissue culture is the well-known Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium, consisting in a mixture of basal salts and vitamins. MS was compared to Formula β, an alternative basal salts mixture that has produced significant better results in previous studies on this crop. Axillary buds were harvested from young branches of a donor mother plant. Buds of each cultivar were plated onto MS basal salts medium, as well as onto a Formula β and onto a modified version of Formula β, defined as A.  In our experiments, media were prepared by using, or not, Gamborg (B5) mixture of vitamins, and supplemented with 3% sucrose, 0.8% agar and at pH adjusted to 5.8. Two different combinations of phytohormones were used: meta-topoline vs. naphthaleneacetic acid + indole-3-butyric acid. Multiwell plates were incubated under an 18-h photoperiod at 25°C for a week, and continually monitored. The percentage of survival and germinated shoot tips was recorded, and results indicated that the success was cultivar-dependent