Vol. 12, Special Issue 9 (2023)

Author(s):
Silpa SG, Sreekala GS, Deepa S Nair and Beena Thomas

Abstract:
Ginger is a significant commercial crop grown for its flavour, pungency, and scent. Ginger being propagated exclusively by vegetative means, the number of clones available is limited. Induced polyploidy is used by some plant breeders for improving yield, quality and to impart pest and disease resistance. Hence, the present investigation is an attempt to induce heteroploidy in eight ginger genotypes using colchicine in vitro. Single bud rhizomes were treated with 0.2% colchicine and morphological, yield and cytological observations were recorded in both treated and control diploid plants. At 60 days, the treated plants recorded very less survival percentage compared to the control ginger genotypes. The maximum survival percentage among colchicine treated plants was in H₈ (5%) followed by H₁ (4%) and H₅ (3%). The treated plant of genotype 8 produced by in vitro method had a chromosome number of 2n=24 which was also a heteroploid confirmed through chromosome counting and flow cytometry analysis. The corresponding diploid had a chromosome number of 2n=22.