IDENTIFICATION OF MEDIUM DEVOID OF AMMONIUM NITRATE FOR MASS MULTIPLICATION OF POTATO

Abstract

Recently, disease-free seed potato production through tissue culture is constrained by non-availability of ammonium nitrate making potato micro-propagation through well established mass multiplication protocol difficult. Therefore, the present study was conducted to identify the medium devoid of ammonium nitrate for mass multiplication of potato. Accordingly the effect of different media viz., modified Gamborg’s, White’s and modified MS on micropropagation potential of different potato cultivars was evaluated keeping MS medium as control. Significant differences due to cultivar, medium and their interactions were observed on almost all the microplant morphological characters studied viz., shoot height, number of leaves, nodes, roots, root length and fresh as well as dry weight. Performance of potato cultivars on different media clearly indicates that in general modified Gamborg’s medium is the most suitable alternate medium for potato micro-propagation as it significantly increased the micro-plant height as compared to MS medium without any significant differences in other morphological characters of micro-plants. Whereas, white’s medium where nitrate is the sole source of nitrogen had negative effect on different morphological characters of microplants. Achievement of fast plantlet height was the indication that potato responds well to modified Gamborg’s medium therefore, it can be successfully utilized as an alternate to MS media for potato micro-propagation besides, it does not affect the regeneration capacity of micro-plants even after several sub-cultures.