Genetic Response of Sugarcane (saccharum Officinarum L.) Genotypes to Varying Concentrations of Cytokinins for in Vitro Shoot Multiplication

Studies were carried out for rapid micropropagation of two sugarcane genotypes Co-86032 and CoVC-18061.The explants were surface sterilized with 75% alcohol for 30 minutes using cotton.The cultures were initiated by inoculating shoot apical meristem on MS (Murashige and Skoog, 1962) medium containing 1.0 mg/l kinetin.The multiplication response of two sugarcane genotypes was studied under five levels of 6-Benzylaminopurine (0, 0.5, 1, 1.5 and 2 mg/l) and five levels of kinetin (0, 0.25, 0.5, 1.0 and 1.5 mg/l) in completely randomized design with 5x5x2 factorial treatment combinations.Analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed that the interaction effects of 6-benzlyaminopurine (6-BAP), kinetin and the sugarcane genotypes on number of shoots per explant, shoot length, and chlorophyll content was highly significant (p< 0.001), except for number of leaves.Multiplication of the cultures was obtained by using various combinations of 6-BAP and kinetin in MS medium.The optimum multiplication for genotype Co 86032 was obtained when MS media supplemented with 1.0 mg/l 6-BAP and 0.5 mg/l kinetin as this genotype produced 32.5 shoots per explant with 6.32 cm shoot length, 2.83 leaves and chlorophyll content of 20.78 mg/g.best performance of CoVC-18061 with respect to number of shoot per explant (27.75), shoot length (7.03) with number of leaves (2.81) and chlorophyll content (22.83 mg/g) was obtained on MS medium fortified with combination of 1.5 mg/l BAP and 0.5 mg/l kinetin after 30 days of culture transferred to multiplication media.The performance of genotype for all characters was very poor in MS medium amended with other combinations.Thus, the optimized protocol is useful for rejuvenation, rapid in vitro propagation and production of large quantity of quality plants.