A Non Mercuric Shoots Bud Sterilization Technique for Boesenbergia rotunda (L.) Mansf. Kulturpfl.

Abstract

Boesenbergia rotunda, a medicinal herb under the Zingiberaceae family, has been proven to be the most prominent anticancer remedies. The conventional breeding of this plant is inapplicable as it is susceptible to rhizome soft rot and leaf spot diseases. The yellow rhizome also produces limited buds. Therefore it is necessary to propagate this plant through in vitro propagation to obtain abundant uniform planting materials. Unfortunately, high cost is incurred due to the high shoot bud explants contamination level. Hence, it is addressed in the present study to solve the contamination problem. Mercuric Chloride is well known to solve this problem, but it is not advisable to use, because of its poisoning and other hazardous effects. Moreover, explant sterilization technique should also accelerate the shoot response. To find an alternative, 6 different surface sterilization methods (SSM) were designed and evaluated on the explants where different combinations of sodium hypochlorite and ethanol (instead of mercuric chloride) were applied. The sterilized shoot bud explants were then cultured on Murashige & Skoog (MS) media with no additional vitamins or plant growth regulator under the light below 25^oC. The contamination was recorded for 3 consecutive weeks along with visible shoot responses. SSM 5 showed minimum contamination and maximum visible shoot response, compared to other SSMs. Therefore, it is suggested that SSM5 could be used to conduct surface sterilization to avoid contamination problem.