The effect of plant growth regulators, cultivars and substrate combination on production of virus free potato minitubers

Nowadays large amounts of potato seed in the world is produced by in vitro virus free minitubers. Therefore, evaluation of commercial varieties in production of virus free potato minitubers is critical. In this study virus free plantlets of 4 potato cultivars of Agria, Marfona, Sante and Burren were achieved with meristem culture method. The meristem-derived plantlets which had optimum growth were transferred to the MS-medium without any growth regulators to stimulate the same vigor of the plantlets. Then DAS-ELISA test was conducted and the effects of different level of2 growth regulators either singly or in combination were evaluated on single node culture of potato. In all cultivars the best and most economical medium for single node culture was MS medium without growth regulators. Afterwards virus free plantlets were selected and transferred to the green house. The effects of substrate combination including 4 planting bed in minituber production were evaluated, after 90 days, numbers and diameters of minitubers for each cultivar were counted and recorded. Marfona had the greatest number of minitubers and Agria had the lowest. There are no any significant differences in minituber diameter between the cultivars. A mixture of peat moss and sand in the ratio of 1:1 was proved to be the best for minituber production.