Low Cost Tissue Culture Technology in the Regeneration of Sweet Potato ( Ipomoea batatas (L) Lam)

Abstract

Sweet potato production in Eastern Africa has been declining due to lack of healthy planting materials . Developing countries have not maximised in vitro sweet potato regeneration due to the high costs in curred. The objective of this research was to reduce the cost of sweet potato tis sue culture nutrients by using affordable alternati ve nutrient sources. The conventional sources of Murashige and Skoog (MS) salts were substituted with Easygro® vegetative ferti lizer containing both macro and micronutrients. Two grams of the fertilizer were supplemented with 30 g/L of table suga r and 9 g/L of agar. Conventional MS medium supplemented with 30 g/L of sucrose and 3 g/L of gelrite was used as the contro l. Two farmerpreferred sweet potato varieties, Kemb-36 and Tainu rey were initiated on the two media. The mean number of nodes, leaves, roots and plant height were determined and comparisons made between the two media. There was 96.9% reduction in the cost of the nutrients used in media preparat ion. Significant differences were detected on the n umber of nodes produced by Kemb-36 on the two media with plantlets cultured on the low cost medium producing four nodes per plantlet while those cultured on the conventional MS medium had an average of five nodes per plantlet. Signific ant differences were not detected on the number of nodes produced b y Tainurey on the two media. The developed low cost medium can be used to boost the production of affordable disease- free sweet potato seedlings.