MICROPROPAGATION OF GINGER

A simple and efficient method of micropropagation of ginger (Zingiber officinale Rosc.) that could produce 750 thousand or more plants after one year from a single shoot tip has been developed.

Excised shoot tips from rhizomes in storage were planted on modified Murashige and Skoog (1962) medium supplemented with 5 mg/l 6-benzylamino purine (BA), 0.5 mg/l NAA and 20 g/l sucrose.
One explanted shoot tip produced more than 4 shoots with roots within 9 weeks.
More than 4 shoots from 20 to 30 mm in length developed from each divided shoot explant within 6 weeks.
This proliferation rate did not decrease in the successive subcultures of individual plantlets on the same medium even after more than one year.
Root system formation was also good in this medium.
Numerous adventitious shoot primordia were observed near the basal portion of the shoot cluster, when subcultured.

The proliferated plantlets of about 20 mm high were transplanted to a vermiculite medium supplemented with the solution containing a half concentration of inorganic salts of Murashige and Skoog medium.
In less than one month, they were easily acclimatized.

All the established plantlets were phenotypically similar to the original clone, and no change of chromosome configuration was found.

Symposium on High Technology in Protected Cultivation

H. Inden, T. Asahira, A. Hirano

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.1988.230.20