Plant Tissue Culture Analysis

Sugarcane is propagated commercially by vegetative method, which involves the planting of the stem cuttings of premature cane about 8 to 12 months old grown with special care are recommended for seed cane (Mengistu, 2013). The seed cane that used as planting material may be either whole stalks or stalks` cut up in shorter segments called setts (Garside et al., 2001). The growth of sugarcane has different phases: germination, tillering, stalk growth, and maturation. The germination is a critical event in the plant life to assure a good harvest. It is initially dependent on the set nutrients and water till developing its own root system for three weeks under proper conditions, though, the initial growth of sugarcane is influenced by several internal

Australia, India and the Philippines in the Asia-Pacific region has already applied this technology for commercial seed production and the benefits have become evident through rapid multiplication and distribution of elite varieties and increased sugarcane production (Jalaja et al., 2008). The experiences of these countries would be of considerable benefit to all those who are in the process of adopting micropropagation for their seed production

Plant tissue culture offers the best methodology through micropropagation of sugarcane for quality and phytosanitary planting material at a faster rate in a shorter period. Tissue culture can increase the propagation potential by 20-35 times (Snyman et al., 2006). About 18, 520 plants, produced from a single shoot through micropropagation, were required as compared to 88 quintal of cane seed in conventional methods for planting in an area of one hectare. Thus, Multiplication ratio was 100-150 times using tissue culture plants as compared to 11-12 using conventional cane setts, leading to drastic reduction in seed cane requirement (Sandhu et al., 2009). Kuar and Sandhu (2014) showed the shoot multiplication rates were ranged from 4 to 25 fold in CoPb 91 and CoJ 83 cultivars, respectively and the complete plantlets were produced in 157 days with 97 percent survival rate. The fidelity of this protocol for agri-business industry was tested by producing approximately 0.1 million saleable HTM sugarcane plantlets in a small-scale (150 m2) tissue culture