Alternative invitro propagation: use of sugarcane bagasse as a low cost support material during rooting stage of strawberry cv. Dover

The purpose of this work was to reduce the cost and improve the quality of the plant material during the micropropagation process in tissue culture. Partially improvement in the rooting process, coupled with cost reduction was obtained during the invitro rooting by the use of a natural support based on sugarcane bagasse as a substitute for the traditionally used agar gelled medium. The tests were conducted with micro-cuttings of strawberry cv. Dover using a medium composed of half strength MS medium (1962), 3% sucrose and 0.05 BAP mg.l-1. The roots number, shoots number, length, and the height of aerial part of 8 independent plants were recorded after 10, 20, 30, and 40 days of culture. Also, an acclimatization tests were realized of the rooted shoots from both the media. A comparison with agar-grown micro-cuttings showed that the sugarcane bagasse yielded better results (14, 40, 15 and 12 respectively). Acclimatization tests were 83% from the agar gelled medium against 100% from the bagasse medium. As the Paraná State, Brazil, possess in great number of the sugarcane bagasse; this can feed the alternative technology invented on the area of micropropagation techniques.