Photoautotrophic micropropagation of Russet Burbank Potato

The photoautotrophic micropropagation of potato cv. Russet Burbank was investigated. Single node microcuttings were grown for four weeks on Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium with or without sucrose (30 g l−1) in the growth room at 21/19 °C day/night temperature, with 16-h photoperiod at 150 μmol m−2 s−1, with or without supplemental CO2 at 1500 μl l−1. A 20% increase in the number of nodes per stem (from 7.5 to 9.4) and a 50% increase in stem dry weight were observed in cultures grown on media with sucrose and in CO2 enriched atmosphere comparing to the conventionally micropropagated cultures or the cultures grown photoautotrophically on media without sucrose but in air supplemented with 1500 μl l−1CO2. Stems of these cultures (from media with sucrose in CO2 enriched air) almost doubled in length the stems of cultures from the other two treatments. No significant differences were observed between Control (MS medium supplemented with sucrose, 30 g l−1) and photoautotrophic cultures coming from MS medium with no sucrose grown under 1500 μl l−1 of CO2. Photoautotrophic cultures produced stems averaging 43.3 mm, with 7 nodes and weighing 9.2 mg (dry weight), similar to conventionally grown in vitro cultures (47.9 mm with 7.5 nodes, 9.7 mg dry weight). Growers may consider photoautotrophic culturing of potato in areas where the high sterility levels are difficult to maintain. Supplementing air in the growth room with 1500 μl l−1 of CO2 could be beneficial for potato plantlet production even on media containing sucrose since it significantly improved quality, size and biomass of produced plantlets, speeding up the multiplication.