Use of the Temporary Immersion Systems for sugar cane vitroplants´ production

Abstract

This work was done at the sugarcane biofactory belonging to the Estación Territorial de Investigaciones de la Caña de Azúcar (ETICA) Villa Clara – Cienfuegos. The objectives were to study the effect of temporary immersion on the multiplication coefficient of different sugarcane genotypes, evaluate the influence of the number of subcultures and the type of vessel on the multiplication coefficient and establish the production norms for the multiplication phase using temporary immersion systems. The results obtained showed that independently of the genotype evaluated, the multiplication coefficient increased with observation in the varieties with lowest values from 1.0 in 3.9 in the conventional system and up to 1.0 in 31.7 with temporary immersion. With respect to the volume of the vessel, there was a marked effect on the multiplication coefficient. The best results were obtained using vessels of 10 L capacity with coefficients that oscillated between 89.3 up to 100 units, which demonstrated the feasibility of using the temporary immersion systems as part of a strategy to semi-automate the micropropagation process of sugarcane and besides it allowed us to determine that one operator should process 3290 explants in a work-day. At the same time, it was possible to determine that the work time reduces on using temporary immersion systems and hence increased the productivity of the process. Key words: explants, micropropagation, multiplication coefficient, semi-automation