2019 ASHS Annual Conference

Ginger (Zingiber officinale Rosc.) is commercially produced exclusively in Hawaii. Seed ginger sourcing has been a challenge for other states in the U.S. In order to help the ginger plant become a viable commodity in North Carolina this research was initiated to explore options for increasing local ginger seed sourcing that is practical and affordable. Towards this goal we have developed a micropropagation protocol for ginger seedling production. Disinfested ginger rhizome buds from two ginger cultivars, Hawaii Yellow (HY) and Kali Ma (KM) were cultured in the Murashige and Skoog (MS) base medium supplemented with 3% sucrose and 0.7% agar, and pH 5.8. The plant growth regulator treatments for shoot initiation and proliferation were MS plus BA, Kinetin, or TDZ combining with NAA. The cultures were incubated in a plant growth chamber at 23^oC under 16 hours of light per day. HY performed much better than KM on the same PGR treatment medium, in terms of number of shoots produced per explant and the ranking of regenerated shoots. TDZ induced good callus and shoot primordia (ginger buds) initiation, but only a few shoots. BA produced reasonably good in vitro multiple shoot production, but not as good as the kinetin treatment. Kinetin produced the best in vitro multiple shoot production, in terms of total number of shoots produced per explant and the shoot ranking. Ginger seedlings were acclimatized in pots containing substrate (1 Metro-Mix 360 and 1 compost) under 80% shade at the University’s farm greenhouse. All micropropagated ginger seedlings from this study had a 100% survival rate and grew well with apparently normal morphology. In addition, there appears to be no difference in performance between micropropagated seedlings and the ones produced conventionally from ginger rhizomes.