Growth of Ipomoea batatas cultivars originated from conventionally or in vitro produced sprouts

Abstract

This work had the objective of analyzing the growth and agronomic behavior of sweet potato cultivars originated from conventionally or in vitro produced sprouts. The experimental design was a 5 × 2 full factorial in randomized complete blocks with four replicates. The treatments were five sweet potato cultivars (ESAM 1, ESAM 2, ESAM 3, Branca do Rio de Janeiro e Califórnia) and two propagation methods (conventional and in vitro). For the growth analysis, plant were collected at 40, 60, 80, 100 and 120 days after planting, from which was measured the plant dry mass, the tuberous root dry mass, and the leaf area. The following physiological indexes were calculated: absolute and relative growth rates, leaf area index and net assimilatory rate. A significant interaction among cultivars, propagation forms and evaluation time for all variables was observed. The highest values were obtained for the plants originated from in vitro culture. Cultivar ESAM 2 exhibited a higher plant dry mass, absolute growth rate and tuberous roots dry mass.