Volume 12, Issue 2, July 2015, Pages 390–398
Richard R. Madege1 and John Msemwa2
1 Deapartment of Crop Science and production, Sokoine University of Agriculture, Tanzania
2 Tanzania Official Seed Certification Institute (TOSCI), P.O. Box: 1056, Morogoro, Tanzania
Original language: English
Copyright © 2015 ISSR Journals. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Starch extracts from cassava, sweet potato, and Irish potato were tested as cheap alternative gelling agents for micropropagation of sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas L.). Nodal explant cultures were initiated in MS (Murashige and Skoog, 1962) medium supplemented with 3% sucrose and 0.5mg/l Benzyl Amino Purine (BAP) and solidified by either 12% sweet potato, 12% Irish potato, 15% cassava starch or 0.8% agar (w/v). Shoots were multiplied through 3 subcultures in BAP free MS medium with 5mg/l gibberelic acid. The overall quality of shoots in starch based media was slightly lower than in agar medium. In 84 days, average number of propagules produced from one explant was 40 in Irish potato medium, 1312 in cassava, 2058 in sweet potato and 3584 in agar. Despite the low multiplication rate of shoots produced on starch media, the cost per propagules was reduced by about 67%, 44% and 33% for sweet potato, cassava and Irish potato starches, respectively. This result suggests that, although starch based media were not as efficient as agar, , sweet potato and cassava starch may be suitable agar substitutes due to low costs and good quality of propagules.
Author Keywords: Ipomoea batatas (L.), starch, gelling agent, micropropagation cost.
Richard R. Madege1 and John Msemwa2
1 Deapartment of Crop Science and production, Sokoine University of Agriculture, Tanzania
2 Tanzania Official Seed Certification Institute (TOSCI), P.O. Box: 1056, Morogoro, Tanzania
Original language: English
Copyright © 2015 ISSR Journals. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract
Starch extracts from cassava, sweet potato, and Irish potato were tested as cheap alternative gelling agents for micropropagation of sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas L.). Nodal explant cultures were initiated in MS (Murashige and Skoog, 1962) medium supplemented with 3% sucrose and 0.5mg/l Benzyl Amino Purine (BAP) and solidified by either 12% sweet potato, 12% Irish potato, 15% cassava starch or 0.8% agar (w/v). Shoots were multiplied through 3 subcultures in BAP free MS medium with 5mg/l gibberelic acid. The overall quality of shoots in starch based media was slightly lower than in agar medium. In 84 days, average number of propagules produced from one explant was 40 in Irish potato medium, 1312 in cassava, 2058 in sweet potato and 3584 in agar. Despite the low multiplication rate of shoots produced on starch media, the cost per propagules was reduced by about 67%, 44% and 33% for sweet potato, cassava and Irish potato starches, respectively. This result suggests that, although starch based media were not as efficient as agar, , sweet potato and cassava starch may be suitable agar substitutes due to low costs and good quality of propagules.
Author Keywords: Ipomoea batatas (L.), starch, gelling agent, micropropagation cost.
How to Cite this Article
Richard R. Madege and John Msemwa, “Evaluation cassava, sweet potato and Irish potato starches as cheap alternative gelling agents for micropropagation of sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas L.),” International Journal of Innovation and Applied Studies, vol. 12, no. 2, pp. 390–398, July 2015.
