Rapid in vitro clonal propagation of two hybrid muskmelon cultivars and their field evaluation in agro climatic condition of Bangladesh

Abstract

An attempt was made to develop a large scale production of planting materials of two Japanese hybrid cultivars of muskmelon through micro-propagation. Highest percentage of seed germination was found in MS medium supplemented with 0.2 mg/l GA_3. In the present work, shoot tip explant of two muskmelon cultivars viz. Sweet Gold and Midori excised from axenic seedlings were cultured for shoot proliferation. The maximum efficiency of shoot multiplication was recorded in MS medium supplemented with 2.0 mg/l BA and maximum number and length of shoots were achieved in the same concentration of BA. The highest percentage of in vitro grown cultured shoots was rooted when they were cultured in MS rooting medium containing 0.5 mg/l NAA for each cultivar. Successfully acclimatized plantlets were transplanted to the field and 80% plantlets survived. Field grown plantlets showed wide ranges of variations between the two sources of explants for different agronomic characters such as plant length, number of leaves/plant, number of fruits/plant and average weight/fruit.