<i>In Situ</i> Clonal Propagation of Stevia (<i>Stevia rebaudiana</i>, Bertoni) Using Hormones

Abstract

The sweet taste of Stevia leaves makes it a potential substitute for table sugar which can be used to sweeten foods and beverages. However, the limited planting materials become a constrained to large production; hence the experiment aims to investigate the different part and methods of propagation for stevia specifically use of different rooting hormones. The experiment was laid out in 3 × 4 factorial arranged in Randomized Complete Block Design. It consists of 3 types of cutting (shoot tips, intermediate stem and basal stem part) and four kinds of commercial hormones (miracle gro, rootech gel, NAA and control). Results showed that the highest percentage survival of stevia was obtained from shoot tips (93.92%) which differed statistically from those intermediate (91.00%) and basal stem cuttings (85.51%). On the other hand, basal stem cutting significantly has the lowest percent survival. Results revealed that shoot tip cuttings treated with Rootech Gel developed roots early (6.92 days), with most number of roots (13.70), longer roots (3.33 cm), and 96.38% survival.

Genetic and nuclear DNA content variation of stevia (Stevia rebaudiana Bertoni) accessions grown in Turkey

“…Although popularity of stevia increases, its large-scale commercialization is still limited due to unavailability or lack of planting materials because of no viable or very low seed germination along with its poor seedling establishment (Tamura et al 1984;Galo, 2019). Therefore, vegetative propagation such as stem cutting is a cheap and better alternative method to grow as annual or perennial transplanted crops (Singh and Rao, 2005).…”