Improving micropropagation of Dioscorea cayenensis – D. rotundata complex by the use of nodal cuttings and microtubers

Yams (Dioscorea spp) are tuber crops used as staple food in Africa because of their nutritional value. In contrast to the inefficiency of traditional method of planting, micropropagation by nodal cuttings allows to increase the multiplication and the rapid production of pathogen free plant material.
The first aim ofIn this work was to show tha,t micropropagation of yam from both nodal cuttings and microtubers was first possible tested both from nodal cuttings and from microtubersand compared. It appears that microtubers rapidly develop shoots, more rapidly than nodal cuttings. Respectively 16 and 28 weeks are needed to obtain 10 cm high shoots. In a second time, the two techniques of multiplication were used in parallel to improve the multiplication rate. So, one nodal cutting after 28 weeks of culture can be subcultured as nodal cuttings (for 28 other weeks) and as microtuber parts (for 16 weeks). At the end of each subculture of nodes or microtubers, nodal cuttings and microtubers were cut and subcultured. This technique allowed obtaining more rapidly a lot of microtubers. The use of nodal cuttings allowed obtaining about 3 104 cuttings in 2 years. The additional use of the formed microtubers and the division of the microtubers at the subculture in three parts increased this multiplication rate by 15. The importance of this work was to consider microtubers not only as final planting product, but also to include them in the in vitro multiplication protocol to drastically increase the production of cuttings and finally of microtubers.