Taro (Colocasia esculenta) and tannia (Xanthosoma sagittifolium) are commonly referred to as cocoyam in Nigeria. They are cherished for their rich taste, nutritional and medicinal properties. Traditionally, cocoyams are vegetatively propagated from tuber fragments, a practice that encourages pathogen distribution. For rapid multiplication and production of quality planting materials, tissue culture technology offers promising alternative compared to the traditional production methods. In this study different concentrations of ripped sweet orange (Citrus sinensis) juice were screened for regeneration and multiplication of 2 months old in vitro cocoyam shoot explants. Among the concentrations, maximum numbers of roots (37 ± 5) were observed in Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium supplemented with 10% orange juice after 8 weeks in culture compared to 16 ± 4 (roots) observed in the control medium. On shoot multiplicity, 16 ± 3 shoots were induced in the control medium in contrast to 12 ± 0.8 shoots in the MS medium supplemented with 10% orange juice after 8 weeks of culture. Higher concentrations (25% and 35%) of the orange juice supplemented medium resulted in concomitant inhibition of all the growth parameters. The study successfully established that ripped orange juice could substitute the use of conventional growth hormones cytokinins (BAP) and auxins (NAA) in in vitro regeneration and rapid multiplication of cocoyam shoot explants.
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