Virus Elimination, in vitro response and colonel multiplication Potato (Solanum tuberosum)

Meristem culture has become a powerful and successful tool for virus elimination from infected plants and has been successfully applied in potato. The potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) tubers for each of three cultivars that grown in pakistan were obtained from the NARC Islamabad. After the thermotherapy, meristems of these potato varieties were cultured for shoot proliferation and root induction in Murishige and skoog (MS) medium supplemented with different types and concentrations of phytohormones. For the initiation of meristems Gibbrelic acid (GA3) with four concentrations (0,1, 2,3, and 4mg) was used. After DAS-ELISA, the virus free in vitro grown potato plantlets were used for massive propagation. The parameters included were number of shoots, no of nodes, no of leaves, plant height and root length. Regarding the rate of initiation the maximum growth was achieved at 1mg/l of GA3. The higher number of nodes and higher number of leaves were produced by GA3 at 2mg/l. For higher frequency of root formation BAP+GA3 was the most effective combination.