Multiplication of mulberry shoots variety Doña Betty in Temporary Immersion System (Original)

Abstract

Mulberry (Morus alba L.) is a forage plant native to the Himalayas, which has shown excellent qualities for feeding different species of animals, whose nutritional value is one of the highest among non-legume tropical forages. Studies carried out in Cuba have shown that mulberry is an alternative food that allows the partial substitution of commercial concentrates in the diet of monogastrics and ruminants. An alternative to conventional propagation methods is the use of in vitro plant tissue culture techniques; however there are few works that use Temporary Immersion Systems. The objective of the research was to determine the time and frequency of immersion for the multiplication of shoots of mulberry variety Doña Betty in the SETIS ™ Temporary Immersion System. Treatments with immersion times of 1.0; 2.0 and 3.0 minutes of duration with frequencies every four, six and eight hours daily; Three SETIS ™ bioreactors were used for each treatment, with 30 explants per flask. At 28 days of culture, the number of shoots, length of the shoot, number of nodal segments and number of leaves were determined. As a result, it was possible to increase the multiplication and quality of the Doña Betty variety mulberry shoots, employing two minutes of immersion every eight hours in a temporary immersion system.