Abstract

Potato production is highly affected by viral diseases such as potato virus X (PVX) and potato virus Y (PVY) which can be overcome by establishing a reproducible meristem culture protocol for the production of virus-free potato plants. This study was conducted during 2017 and 2018 on two potato cultivars “Spunta” and “Alaska Red” in Palestine. The tubers were subjected to reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT- PCR) for detection of virus infection. The infected tubers for both cultivars were incubated, and after sprouting, meristems-tips were isolated and cultured on Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium. After four weeks, developed shoots were cultured on MS media supplemented with different rates of three hormonal combinations (0.54 |uM NAA; 0.54 |uM NAA + 1.0 |M TDZ; 0.54 |M NAA + 2.2 |M BA; 0.54 |M NAA + 2.3 |M Kinetin; 0.54 |M NAA + 1.0 |M TDZ+ 2.2 |M BA + 2.3 |M Kinetin). The results showed that maximum shoot multiplication was observed when NAA at 0.54 |M was combined with 1 |M TDZ (2.85 and 2.55 shoots) in both “Spunta” and “Alaska Red” cultivars, respectively. Higher shoot length and leaf number were obtained when NAA was combined with either BA (2.2 |M) or Kinetin (2.3 |M) in both cultivars. In vitro multiplied shoots were rooted and acclimatized successfully. Neither t PVY nor PVX viruses were detected by RT-PCR on the RNA extracts from the tested in vitro grown samples.