Al Faria, L: In Vitro Clonal Propagation of Muskmelon

In the present investigation an attempt was made to develop a large scale production of planting materials of two Japanese hybrid cultivars of muskmelon through micropropagation. Seeds of two popular Japanese muskmelon cultivars were surface sterilized and cultured on semisolid MS medium supplemented with different concentrations of GA3. Seed germination was the highest when MS medium was supplemented with 0.2 mg/l GA3. In the present work, two explants of two muskmelon cultivars viz. Sweet Gold and Midori excised from axenic seedlings were cultured for shoot proliferation. Nodal segments showed better shoot proliferation than shoot tip explants. The maximum efficiency of shoot multiplication was recorded in MS medium supplemented with 2.0 mg/l BA. Maximum number and length of shoots were achieved in case of nodal explants when cultured on MS medium augmented with 2.0 mg/l BA. The highest percentage of in vitro grown cultured shoots to develop roots was obtained when they were cultured in MS rooting medium containing 0.5 mg/l NAA for two cultivars. Successfully acclimatized plantlets were transplanted in to field and 80% plantlets survived.