| dc.description.abstract | Abstract - Orchid is one of the most important cut flowers, grown in
Sri Lanka. Quality raw material supply is a key success for orchid
cultivation and scarcity leads to major concern in sustainable growth
of the industry in a long run. Mass cultivation by micro propagation
techniques can be successfully used to mass propagation of orchids;
thus, cost benefit is less due to the high cost. Aim of this research was
to replacement of expensive agar with low-cost substance for in vitro
sub culturing of Cattalya seedlings. Two-month-old Cattleya seedlings
were subcultures on Murashige and Skoog media (MS) as basal media.
As gelling agents’ sago, semolina, corn flour, semolina + agar, corn
flour + agar was used. Used agar as the control treatment. Cultures
were maintained inside the culture room. Number of leaves, Number
of roots, Leaf length, leaf width and percentage of contaminations
were recorded at four-week intervals. Sago and semolina + agar
showed higher performance and low contamination percentage as
alternative gelling agent in the MS media. The results of this study
propose that sago, semolina, and corn flour can be used as an
alternative gelling agent in MS media. This low-cost method might be
uplift the orchid culture in Sri Lanka. | en_US |
