African Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 3 (4), pp. 248-252, April 2004               

Full Length Research Paper

A Study on the use of carrot juice in the tissue culture of Daucus carota

D. Puchooa* and R. Ramburn

Faculty of Agriculture, University of Mauritius, Réduit, Mauritius.

*Corresponding author. E-mail: sudeshp@uom.ac.mu.

Accepted 30 March 2004

Effects of using carrot juice in the in vitro growth of Daucus carota were investigated. Callus was the only form of growth obtained after five weeks in culture. The increase in fresh weight, dry weight and moisture content of the explants with increasing concentration of carrot juice in the medium was much lower when compared to either the cytokinin benzyladenine (BA) and/or the auxin picloram. Spectrophotometric and chromatographic analyses revealed the presence of both indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) and abscissic acid (ABA) in the carrot juice, while gibberellic acid was absent.

Key words: Carrot juice, auxin, abscissic acid.