EFFECT OF DROUGHT IN POTATO MICROTUBERS PRODUCTION AND ACTIVITY OF PEROXIDASE IN VITRO

Abstract

An experiment was conducted at the University of Baghdad, College of Agriculture during 2012 and 2013 .The objective was to study the effect of plant tissue culture on producing microtubers form three clones of potato Solanum tuberosum L. cvs: Desiree, Manito and Savana. Completely randomized design with10 replications were used. The variables were; sucrose at concentrations 30, 60, 90 and 120 g.l-1, polyethlenglycol (PEG) 0, 0.5, 1.0, 1.5 and 2.0% and mannitol 0, 1500, 3000, 4500 and 6000 mg.l-1. Measurements were taken on numbers of tubers under activity of peroxidase enzyme. The results of statistical analysis verealed that significant differences among factors and their interactions Treatment of sucrose at 90gl.-1 gave highest number of tubers (2.63 tubers.cutting-1).The results revealed that there was a reduction in number of tubers at all concentration of PEG and mannitol as compared with control treatment. There was high activity of peroxidase enzyme in Savanna clone grown at B5 medium that supported with different concentrations of PEG, sucrose, mannitol amount to 77.40, 45.91, 63.32 absorption unit.g-1, respectively.Thus,it was concluded from There results that increar these peroxidase enzyme activety has increased of tubers under drought. It was recommended to use enzymic antioxidant when thrse is a need to propagate potato micro tubers under drought conditions used in this study.