Vegetos

Abstract

Potato (Solanum tuberosum) L. is an economically important tuber crops. Conventionally, plants are propagated through tubers. Due to low multiplication rate and high susceptibility to various diseases, there is a need to develop an alternate method of propagation. Micropropagation will be the answer for mass production of true-to-type, disease free quality planting material of potato. With this in view, experiments were conducted for development of efficient protocol for micro-propagation and microtuberization of potato cv. Kufri Pukhraj, a popular variety in India. Sprouts and Shoot tips were used as explants. Sterilized explants were inoculated on MS basal supplemented with various growth regulators and established successfully. The sprouted explants were further sub-cultured on MS media supplemented with various growth regulator alone and in combination for in vitro multiplication. Maximum shoots (21.3) was obtained on MS medium fortified with 0.25mg/l BAP+0.01mg/l IAA on 42th day of subculture. In vitro rooting was observed on MS basal medium supplemented with 2.0 mg/l IBA after 10 days. Rooted plantlets were successfully hardened in green house using different types of potting mixture and finally transferred to field for further observations. For experimentation on microtuberization, nodal segment were taken and kept in different media. Maximum number of microtuber (3.8) were obtained in PTM₃ (MS basal salt + 0.01mg/l BAP + 0.01mg/l NAA + 0.1mg/l GA₃ + Sugar 80g/l) in 50.1 days with 9.4mm size and 0.4g weight. The protocol will be very useful for large-scale production of true-to-type planting material of potato.