Varietal Improvement of Potatoes Through Plant Biotechnology

Abstract

Different aspects of micropropagation through meristem culture for the production of virus indexed source plants, callus induction followed by subsequent plant regeneration, in vitro tuberization and field evaluation of the i11 vitro regenerated plants were studied on four commercial cultivars of potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) viz., Diamant, Cardinal, Shilbilati and Lalpakri. Shoot tips of· 25-30 days old-field grown plants of four cultivars were used for meristem isolation. After isolation, meristems of these varieties of potato were cultured on to filter paper bridge in liquid MS (Murashige and Skoog, 1962) medium. Among 29 media formulations MS + 0.1 mg/1 KIN + 0.5 mg/I GA3 was found to be the best for primary establishment of meristems and for maximum shoot proliferation MS + 0.5 mg/I BA+ 0.5 mg/I GA3 was found to be effective and the most preferred formulation among 22 media formulations used. Rooted plantlets of four potato cultivars were gradually acclimatized and successfully established in the field. Visual evaluation of the morphological traits of the meristem-derived plants showed that all plants were normal and free from virus diseases. Substantial yield increase was observed from meristem­derived plants over their source plants. ---------