Comparative study on agar and cassava gelled media in in-vitro propagation of ginger

Ginger is propagated vegetatively using underground rhizomes. Most farmers use planting materials saved from previous harvest. These materials could have been sold for cash. Contingent on this, many farmers are reluctant to use healthy succulent rhizomes for planting. These are rather sold thereby resulting in acute shortage of planting materials. Tissue culture technique can be applied to mass-produce seedlings for distribution to ginger farmers. This however, is not cost effective now due to lack of the necessary materials required for tissue culture. Most of the materials for tissue culture are not locally available and are therefore, procured at prohibitive cost. It is on the basis of these considerations that the present research was set up to develop a locally available and cheap protocol that is reproducible in ginger plant tissue culture work. Cassava flour possesses gelling properties with potentials for preparation of plant tissue culture medium. Agar gelled medium was compared with cassava gelled medium. Cassava gelled medium at four weeks after initiation, gave a higher mean value of 2.033 buds per plant and bud length of 1.411 cm compared to agar with a mean value of 1.9 buds and 1.192 cm, respectively (P>0.05). At eight weeks, cassava consistently gave a higher mean value of 2.611 buds per plant and bud length of 2.19 cm compared to agar with a mean value of 1.944 buds per plant and 1.42 cm respectively (P>0.05). [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]