Full Length Research Paper

Environmental and genotypic effects on the growth rate of in vitro cassava plantlet (Manihot esceulenta)

Sunday E. Aladele^1* and Danladi D. Kuta²

¹National Centre for Genetic Resources and Biotechnology P. M. B. 5382, Moor Plantation, Ibadan, Nigeria.

²Sheda Science and Technology Complex (SHESTCO), P. M. B. 186, Garki, Abuja, Nigeria.

*Corresponding author. E-mail: sundayaladele@yahoo.com.

Accepted 19 April, 2007

Two varieties of cassava were evaluated in vitro in the screen house and culture room using five different media treatment. Each treatment was replicated 12 times and observed for 5 weeks before sub-culturing. There were significant differences in the growth rate of plantlets in different media, which suggests an interaction between treatments and environments. However, F-probability on survival shows that TMS 188/00106 was significantly different from TMS 083/00125 in the culture room than in the screen house. The study confirms that cassava tissue culture can be raised in the screen house but suggests that plantlet should be allowed to survive in the culture room before transferring to the screen house for further growth.

Key words: Explants, plantlets, sub-culturing, nodal increase.