In Vitro Shoot Tip Culture Of Curcuma Longa L.

Abstract

Turmeric (Curcuma longa L.) is renowned for its medicinal properties and its contribution to the food industry. However, this perennial herb is prone to diseases and requires a great deal of time to produce a large number of rhizomes, causing a shortage of initial material for propagation. Therefore, an alternative approach through micropropagation of shoot tips was applied for obtaining a large quantity of disease-free planting material. In this research, calcium hypochlorite was studied at 2 concentrations and various durations as a replacement for sodium hypochlorite for the surface sterilization. Also, the present study was conducted to examine the effect of BAP in combination of NAA on multiple shoot clusters formation. The effect of combination of BAP and three kinds of auxin (IAA, IBA, NAA) on the multiplication of shoot were investigated in this study. The result showed that the effective protocol for sterilization was Calcium hypochlorite at 5% in 30 minutes, followed by 0.1% mercuric chloride in 10 minutes with an addition of three drops of Tween 20. Besides, a combination of 3 mg L-1 BAP and 0.5 mg L-1 NAA induced the highest number of multi-shoot clusters. Finally, an addition of 0.3 mg L-1 IAA in the MS medium supplemented with 3 mg L-1 BAP induced the highest multiplication rate and can be considered a potential media for shoot multiplication.