Conservation of in vitro plants of sugar cane

Abstract

The development of in vitro culture techniques for plant tissues provides new alternatives for ex situ conservation of sugarcane germplasm. The aim of this paper was to determine the conditions for in vitro conservation of sugar cane plants; culture temperature, saline and manitol concentration in the culture medium were evaluated. In vitro plants of 2 cm height form cultivar C 87-51 in multiplication were incubated at 12, 15 and 18 2.0 ºC. The MS formulation (25, 50, 75 and 100 % of its original concentration) was complemented with different concentrations of manitol (0, 10, 20, 30 g.l-1). After two months of conservation initial 12 months the percentage of plants survival, the height and the number of shoots per plant were evaluated. It was possible to conservate in vitro plants of sugarcane for 12 months at 15 °C. The percentage of plants survival rated between 53.3 and 86.6 %. The plants height decreased with the increment of the manitol concentration; nevertheless the number of shoots per plant was higher in treatments including this osmotic regulator. Key words: culture temperature, manitol, minimal growth, survival