Comparing Liquid and Solid Media on the Growth of Plantlets from Three Kenyan Potato Cultivars

Tissue culture has been used to produce high quality and clean planting material. In addition to viral elimination, tissue culture offers other advantages such as rapid multiplication of seed stock for basic seed production within a short period of time. The method is also useful for germplasm conservation. Although, in-vitro multiplication of potato was started 40 years ago and is promising, extensive use in developing countries has been limited by the high costs of media. There is thus need to explore cheaper alternatives without compromising on quality of in -vitro plantlets. A study was carried out to compare the effects of the liquid medium and solid medium on performance of three popular Kenyan potato cultivars i.e. Dutch, Kenya Sifa and Tigoni. Liquid medium consisted of Murashige and Skoog medium supplemented with normal vitamins and sucrose while solid medium consisted of the same chemicals into which phytagel were added to solidify the medium. Data taken were number of roots, nodes and leaves per plantlet over time. From the results, the liquid medium gave more roots, more nodes and more leaves per plantlet than the solid medium. The results therefore indicated that liquid media have a significant effect on the plant growth. In addition, liquid medium was found to be cheaper than solid media by USD 1.65. It appears more economical to use liquid media than solid media for in vitro micro-propagation of potato. However, the experiment needs to be repeated especially with different potato cultivars so as to come up with useful recommendations.