FIELD PERFORMANCE OF in vitro SWEET POTATO [Ipomoea batatas L. (Lam)] PLANTLETS DERIVED FROM SEEDSTOCKS

Abstract

A field trial was conducted to compare the performance of in vitro plantlets derived from the meristem cultures of rootstocks through micro-propagation with the performance of the traditional seed roots in 2009 and 2010. There was no significant difference between the in vitro plantlets and the traditional seed root for haulm length (HL), branch number (BN) and stem number (SN). In vitro plantlets had significantly higher means as compared to traditional seed roots for single storage root weight (SSRW) (305.5 g vs 217.6 g), single plant yield (SPY) (4.1 kg vs 3.0 kg) and plot yield (PY) (16.2 kg vs 12.0 kg). Cultivar NC-150 had higher means than those of the other two cultivars in terms of storage root weight (417.6 g), single plant yield (4.6 kg) and plot yield (18.4 kg).