Induction and Stability of Phenotypic Variation in Sugarcane as Affected by Propagation Procedure
1995
Burner, D. M. | Grisham, M. P.
Sugarcane (Saccharum L. spp. hybrids) propagated in vitro from shoot tips is generally assumed to be less phenotypically variable than from callus culture. The objectives of this research were to study stalk, milling, and morphological variant characteristics of plants of ‘CP 74-383’ from callus culture, direct regeneration, shoot tip culture, and conventional bud propagation, and to assess the phenotypic stability after vegetative propagation. Plants were evaluated in plant-cane and first-ratoon crops (Experiment 1). Plants with normal or off-type phenotypes selected from Exp. 1 were similarly evaluated in two successive plant-cane crops (Experiment 2). The frequency of variants was high for all tissue culture (TC) treatments. The frequency of normal TC plants was 10 and 22% in plant-cane and first-ratoon crops, respectively, showing that some variation was transitory. However, phenotypes of normal or off-type selections were stable with vegetative propagation. The TC plants had low mean plant height, stalk diameter, and stalk weight. Normal TC plants and controls (from bud propagation) were similar for stalk number and plant height, but normal selections had thinner, lighter stalks. Treatments did not differ in milling characteristics in either experiment, indicating that morphology was independent of cane composition. The results demonstrated that shoot tip culture of this cultivar induced considerable phenotypic variability. Little useful in-vitro induced variability occurred for important phenotypic characteristics.
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