Screening and Determination of Sterilization Protocol and Optimum Growth Regulators for Micropropagation of Sugar Cane (Saccharum officinarum L.) in Ghana

Abstract

Micropropagation is a more rapid means to generate adequate healthy sugar cane planting materials towards increased sustainable production of the crop for industrial processing to produce sugar. However, stable axenic cultures and optimum growth regulators are critical to in vitro propagation of sugar cane. The study was to determine the optimum concentration of sodium hypochlorite, and some organic supplements to establish and multiply sugar cane in vitro. Murashige and Skoog (MS) media were supplemented with different concentrations and combinations of 6-Benzylaminopurine (BAP), 1-Naphthaleneacetic acid (NAA), Gibberellic acid (GA), Indole-3-butyric acid (IBA), kinetin and sucrose with blank medium as control. The media were inoculated with sterile shoots derived from initiated cultures of a local variety of sugar cane (B41227) and incubated at 26 ± 2^oC, 2500 Lux and 16 hours photoperiod for 6 weeks. The experiment was repeated with 15 cultures per treatment in three replications. 2.0% sodium hypochlorite was most effective to sterilize shoot explants with 68 % surviving cultures. A significantly (P ≤ 0.05) highest mean number of shoots and fresh weight of 25.2 and 2.02g were induced by 2.0 mg/l BAP plus 2.0 mg/l GA with the least number of shoots (4.0) and fresh weight (0.32g) for control cultures. Rooting was significantly (P ≤ 0.05) highest (10.3 per culture) for 45 % sucrose followed by 3.5 mg/l IBA (6.5 per culture).  Indeed, 2.0 mg/l BAP plus 2.0 mg/l GA, and 45 g/l sucrose or 2.0 mg/l IBA were optimal for shoot proliferation and rooting respectively.