Analysis of growth, yield potential and horticultural performance of conventional vs. micropropagated plants of <i>Curcuma longa</i> var. Lakadong

Abstract

Complete randomized block design was applied to evaluate and compare the growth, yield and field performance of in vitro derived turmeric plants with conventional rhizome under field condition. In vitro propagated plants manifest consistently superior horticultural performance over the conventional rhizome. Among the different lines of in vitro propagated plants, plantlets treated with silver nitrate (AgNO3) were studied and compared with the conventional rhizome which showed superior growth in almost all the different traits compared. Phenotypic variation was higher in in vitro (3.3%) than conventional plant (1.2%) with no statistically significance. Tissue culture plants grew vigorously and taller than conventional type after six months of propagation. The highest yield potential were observed in in vitro plants (13.96 ton/ha) as compared with the conventional rhizome (6.97 ton/ha). However, the agronomic traits observed during the present study in tissue culture plants are stable, and has to be ascertained in subsequent years. If provided stable, this clone can be incorporated into the crop improvement programs of turmeric var. Lakadong.

Keywords: Turmeric, micropropagation, field performance, tissue culture

African Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 12(14), pp. 1604-1608, 3 April, 2013