Plant Biotechnology
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Plant Biotechnology Research
Plant Biotechnology conducts experiments, particularly on tissue culture techniques that were commenced at MARC since 2003 and strives to support and enhance the existing crop improvement research by introducing or generating advanced technologies in the research system. The experiments were primarily focused on optimization of in vitro protocol for micropropagation of horticultural crops mainly bananas and micro grafting of elite citrus cultivars for virus cleaning. Micropropagation protocol optimization for mass propagation, disease cleaning and in vitro conservation experiments on crops like sugarcane, garlic, date palm, aloe vera and plantains have been undertaken in laboratory. Through the experiments conducted so far, in vitro protocols for micropropagation of six banana cultivars were optimized and the information has been disseminated to users using extension materials.
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Performance of the in vitro plantlets were been evaluated in comparison with conventional suckers and showed good results. Moreover, mass propagation of elite cultivars of banana using the optimized protocol and tissue cultured disease-free quality banana planting materials had been disseminated to major banana producing areas in Ethiopia. In vitro protocols for micropropagation of nine elite sugarcane cultivars were optimized and the in vitro multiplied and acclimatized plantlets were supplied to Wonji Sugar Corporation Research Directorate. Similarly, in vitro protocol for micropropagation of one elite cultivar of aloe vera was optimized and the in vitro multiplied and acclimatized aloe vera seedlings were applied to Wondogenet Agricultural Research Center. Currently, in vitro multiplication of aloe vera is underway. Besides, garlic infecting viruses were identified using genome sequencing and three elite garlic cultivars were cleaned from viruses using meristem culture and thermotherapy techniques. In vitro multiplication of virus-free thirteen elite sweet potato cultivars were conducted.
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Micropropagation of banana: (a) preconditioning, (b) initiation, (c) multiplication, (d) rooting, and (e) acclimatization
Garlic virus diagnosis and cleaning (a) bulbs, (b) virus symptomatic seedling, (c) meristem tip, (d) meristem initiated plantlet, and (e) cleaning validation using RT-PCR
A new innovative pathogen diagnostics system (a) infected wheat sample, (b) DNA extraction, (c) PCR amplification, (d) sequencing library preparation, (e) loading library to MinION, and (f) sequencing, MinION attached to a laptop.
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