Microtuberization Potential of Jasmonic Acid, Kinetin and Putrescine in Potato (Solanum tuberosum L.)

Potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) is the most widely produced tuberous crop all over the world because of its high nutritional value. Tissue culture practices are mostly used to produce true-to-type and virus-free planting material of potato as compared to traditional means. As various plant growth hormones affect the initiation and growth of microtuber, the current experiment was conducted to study the effect of different concentrations of jasmonic acid (JA), kinetin (Kin) and putrescine, either alone or in combination on microtuberization. For this, Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium containing 80 gL(-1) sucrose was supplemented with different concentrations of JA, Kin and putrescine under dark conditions. Overall, twelve treatments (T0 = control, T1 = 10 mu M Kin, T2 = 15 mu M Kin, T3 = 2.5 mu M JA, T4 = 5 mu M JA, T5 = 80 gL(-1) putrescene, T6 = 2.5 mu M JA + 10 mu M Kin, T7 = 2.5 mu M JA + 15 mu M Kin, T8 = 5 mu M JA + 10 mu M Kin,T9 = 5 mu M JA + 15 mu M Kin,T10 = 2.5 mu M JA + 15 mu M Kin + 80 gL(-1) putrescine, and T11 = 5 mu M JA + 10 mu M Kin + 80 gL(-1) Putrescine in MS medium) of these biomolecules were supplemented to MS medium. The results indicated that medium T9 (MS + 5 mu M JA and 15 mu M Kin) significantly increased the microtuberization as well as average number (3.7), size (4.54 mm), fresh weight (503.44 mg) and dry weight (124.77 mg) of microtuber as compared to all other treatment media tested in this study. This might be due to the increased level of tuberonic acid, and its glucosides in the plant also increased due to the exogenous supply of JA that enhanced tuber formation. Hence, this technique can be used and suggested as an efficient microtuber production protocol in potato cv. Desiree at commercial scale to fulfill the requirement of healthy germplasm of potato.