Produção de plantas livres de vírus de duas variedades Moçambicanas de Mandioca - Manihot esculenta Cranz através da cultura de Meristemas

Abstract

Cassava is the main source of food for about 500 million people in more than 60 countries in Africa, Southeast Asia, Latin America and Oceania. There are many constraints on its production, such as diseases, being the virus attack (AVMV), one of the most devastating in cultures. In order to optimize crops, producing virus-free plants, meristem culture is considered to be one of the most efficient techniques. The basic principle is to cultivate the apical meristem of cassava, because in this area the plant carries the virus at low concentrations or in almost zero concentrations, in the culture medium added with plant hormones for development and growth of the shoot from the meristems. In this work, meristems of two varieties of cassava (Manhaça local, the most resistant variety, and Manica 2B, a variety more sensitive to the virus), grow in a medium under different hormonal concentrations, in order to determine the best hormone concentration for growth. Meristemes grow best at low concentrations of Benzyladeninepurine (BA). The meristems of the two varieties do not show differences in growth under different hormonal concentrations. A morphological analysis of the leaves of the shoots obtained shows no signs of virus infection.