Research Article

Miniature Tubers in Immature Tissue Culture Jamaica Yams (Dioscorea sp.) and Biotechnology Applications for all Year Production

Authors: Collin SCANTLEBURY, Ryan FRANCIS

DOI: 10.33425/2771-9014.1021

---

Abstract

Three-month old weaned tissue cultured yams (Dioscorea cayenenis var. yellow yam) were maintained in pots in shade-house conditions. Analysis of triplicate random samples, comprising 36 plants each, showed that a two month period of sharp decline in day-length from 13.2 hours to 12.5 hours was associated with a 50 – 70 % incidence of senescence and a 40 – 70 % incidence of tuberization. A novel observation was that tuberization was associated with an increase in daily minimum temperature. There was no significant difference in senescence or tuberization between samples and no correlation between senescence and tuberization frequency. The mean number of mini-tubers per sample of 12 plants ranged from 5.7 ± 0.6 to 8 ± 1.0 with statistically significant differences between samples. However, there was no difference in mean tuber mass between samples with overall mean mass of 2.0 ± 1.0 g per tissue culture (TC) plant. The mini-tuber diameter ranged from 13.0 to 14.0 mm but even in this narrow range, there was significant differences between samples. Despite apparent small ranges, ANOVA indicated that non-senescent vines showed significant differences between samples in number of shoots (1.1 ± 0.1 to 1.3 ± 0.6), shoot length (20.34 ± 2.89 to 34.47 ± 9.35 mm) and number of nodes per vine (7.2 ± 1.4 to 10.4 ± 3.0). Recommendations were made on how Biotechnology could be used to better facilitate all year production of yam.

View / Download PDF