Abstract
Large quantity of potato seed is produced by in vitro virus free mini tubers worldwide. Therefore, evaluation of commercial varieties for production of virus free potato mini tuber is critical. In the current study, the effects of various combinations of Abscisic acid (ABA) and Gibberellic acid (GA) each at three levels i.e. 0.5 , 1.0 and 2.0 mg liter-1 were evaluated on meristem culture of two potato cultivars namely "Agria" and "Savalan". Meristems were excised from plantlets grown in wooden boxes. The meristems were then transferred into tubes containing 2 mL liquid MS medium (Prematilake and Mendis, 1999) containing above mentioned growth hormones. Meristems were placed on the M bridges. Then the tubes were placed in germinator with 25 ± 2°C and 18:6 hours Day : Night photoperiod. After 3 weeks, the plantlets were sub-cultured into jars with 30 mL semi-solid medium with same treatments. In this study, the plantlets were sub-cultured twice again each three weeks. At the end, data on morphological traits such as stem length, bud and shoot number were recorded. The results showed that there existed significant differences among treatments. For stem length, there was a significant difference between varieties, various concentrations of ABA and GA and also double and triple interactions between factors. For bud number, the varieties showed significant differences. GA had a significant interaction with variety and ABA. Shoot number was affected by different varieties and different ABA concentrations.
