In Vitro Propagation of Selected Sugarcane ( Saccharum Officinarum L . ) Varieties ( C 86-165 and C 86-12 ) Through Shoot Apical Meristem
Sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum L.) is monocotyledonous crop plant that belongs to the Poaceae family that mostly propagates through conventional methods. However, conventional propagation lacks rapid multiplication procedures to commercialize newly released varieties within a short period of time. Hence, the objective of this work was to optimize in vitro micro propagation protocol for two sugarcane varieties (C 86-165 and C 86-12) using shoot apical meristem explants. The two varieties were cultured on MS medium supplemented with different concentrations of growth regulators on shoot initiation, multiplication and root induction stages. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed that the two varieties showed statistically significant difference in their response to the various hormonal treatments with regard to the parameters measured. For initiation stage vars. C 86-165 and C 86-12 performed best on 1.0 mg/l and 0.5 mg/l of BAP, respectively. On the other hand, multiplication stage was best in MS media enriched with 2.0 mg/l BAP + 0.5 mg/l NAA and 1.5 mg/l BAP + 0.5 NAA as manifested in terms of number of shoots and shoot length per explants after four weeks of culture for vars. C 86-165 and C 86-12, respectively. With regard to root induction, best rooting response in terms of mean root number, mean root length, mean fresh weight and mean dry weight was achieved in 1/2 MS media enriched with 2.0.mg/l NAA and 1.0 mg/l NAA after four weeks of culture for vars. C 86-165 and C 86-12, respectively.
Comparative Studies on Field Performance of Micropropagated and Conventionally Propagated Sugarcane Plants
The tissue culture derived sugarcane var. CoJ 64 plants attained better height, millable cane height and a greater number of live buds to conventionally raised plants. Further, the plants raised in vitro showed 13.2% increase in cane yield and 11.03% sugar recovery as compared to conventionally propagated sugarcane under parallel agronomic practices in the field, advocating suitability of seed cane programmed through tissue culture. Key words: Comparative studies, Field performance, Sugarcane, Micropropagation DOI = 10.3329/ptcb.v16i1.1102 Plant Tissue Cult. & Biotech. 16(1): 25-29, 2006 (June)
AGROBACTERZUM TUMEFACZENS-MEDIATED TRANSFORMATION OF SUGARCANE USING CELL SUSPENSION CULTURE WITH A NOVEL METHOD BY
Callus and cell suspension cultures were initiated and maintained in sugarcane clone, cv. NiF4 (Saccharum spp. hybrid) and were used as starting material. These were transformed with Agrobacterium tumefaciens EHAlOl and LBA4404 carrying a binary vector pMLH7133-GUS, which contains neomycin phospho-transferase (NPTII), hygromycin phospho-transferase (HPT) and 13-glucuronidase (GUS) genes. Expression of the GUS activity suggested that co-cultivation in liquid medium is effective, and cell aggregates of suspension culture is superior to calli cultured on solid medium as a material for Agrobacterium-mediated transformation in sugarcane. In experiment 1, hygromycin-resistant, GUS-positive calli were selected from the infected cell suspension culture. In experiment 2, hygromycin-resistant, GUS-positive shoots were regenerated from the selected calli. The HPT gene was detected from these calli and shoots by PCR analysis.