IN VITRO PROPAGATION OF SELECTED SUGARCANE (Saccharum officinarum L.) VARIETIES (C 86-12 and C 86-165) THROUGH APICAL MERISTEM

Sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum L.) is monocotyledonous crop plant that belongs to the Poaceae family that mostly propagates through conventional methods. However, conventional propagation lacks rapid multiplication procedures to commercialize newly released varieties within a short period of time. Hence, the objective of this work was to optimize in vitro micro propagation protocol for two sugarcane varieties (C 86-165 and C 86-12) using shoot apical meristem explants. The two varieties were cultured on MS medium supplemented with different concentrations of growth regulators on shoot initiation, multiplication and root induction stages. Finally, rooted plantlets were transplanted to three types of acclimatization medium in greenhouse, namely: coco peat alone, mixture of coco peat soil, sand, and composite; and mixture of garden soil, manure, and were kept under different lighting conditions. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed that the two varieties showed statistically significant difference in their response to the various hormonal treatments with regard to the parameters measured. For initiation stage vars.C 86-165 and C 86-12 performed best on 1.0 mg/l and 0.5 mg/l of BAP, respectively. On the other hand, multiplication stage was best in MS media enriched with 2.0 mg/l BAP + 0.5 mg/l NAA and 1.5 mg/l BAP + 0.5 NAA as manifested in terms of number of shoots, shoot length, mean fresh weight and mean dry weight per explants after four weeks of culture for vars.C 86-165 and C 86-12, respectively. With regard to root induction, best rooting response in terms of mean root number, mean root length, mean fresh weight and mean dry weight was achieved in 1/2 MS media enriched with 2.0.mg/l NAA and 1.0 mg/l NAA after four weeks of culture for vars.C 86-165 and C 86-12, respectively. Survival rate during acclimatization was best on coco peat media alone for both varieties of C 86-165 and C 86-12 survived 76.7% and 84%, respectively. Lastly, factors causing low acclimatization, tissue dying, contamination and phenol exudation in the study should be further investigated.