POTENTIALITY OF UREA AS A SUBSTITUTE FOR AMMONIUM NITRATE IN TISSUE CULTURE MEDIA FOR POTATO PLANTLET REGENERATION

Tissue culture is an important biotechnological aspect for fast multiplication and regeneration of plantlets focusing disease free plant. Ammonium nitrate (NH4NO3), an important ingredient of tissue culture medium is used as a major salt but it is explosive in nature and risky which restricted its use in cell culture. This present study was carried out to find out the efficient substitute of NH4NO3 with urea for three potato varieties following completely Randomized Design (CRD). According to our hypothesis, we used urea as a major salt in stock solution-1 for the preparation of tissue culture medium instead of NH4NO3. Four different media composition (T1= company recommended dose, Ready MS powder-Dutchefa, Netherlands, T2= 16.50 gmL-1 of ammonium nitrate- MS standard dose, T3= 1gmL-1 of urea and T4= 5 gm L-1) were used. T4 (5 gmL-1 of urea) showed best efficient on in vitro regeneration with maximum shoot and leaf numbers with healthy and robust plantlets. Findings presented the urea as an efficient substitute of explosive chemical NH4NO3 and it is the first reported works in plant tissue culture. Our results indicated the urea as a safe and efficient substitute for potato tissue culture and plantlet regeneration. Our result also showed the appropriate concentration of urea for tissue culture media. Urea as an substitution of formulation of stock solution-1 is new invention in our present study.