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NAREI’s scientists produce breadfruit plants from tissue culture techniques
For the first time in Guyana’s history, scientists at the National Agriculture Research and Extension Institute (NAREI) were able to produce breadfruit plants from tissue culture, a biotechnology initiative to increase yields.
Some of the tissue culture breadfruits
NAREI’s Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Oudho Homenauth, said that this new initiative means that farmers will have access to quality and disease-free planting materials year-round. The institute will also be able to expand cultivation in a shorter period of time.
NAREI can continue to sell these plants cheaper than what they are being sold for by private persons.
Under the tissue culture process, plantlets have to pass through four stages before they can be planted in open fields. The stages are germplasm and establishment of in-vitro cultures (initiation stage) followed by shoot multiplication, then root and plantlet development, and finally, the hardening stage.
In the process of hardening, the plantlets get acclimatized for their subsequent transfer to soil. The hardened plants are then transferred to the potting mix and maintained in a greenhouse during the initial phase.
The variety experimented on is the “Ma’afala”. It took three months from the initiation to the hardening stage. The first batch of the test tube breadfruit plants is currently at the hardening stage and will be made available to the market in a month.
Once planted in an open field, it will take about two and a half years for a tissue culture breadfruit plant to produce fruit ready for consumption, depending on the variety, management and environmental conditions.
Research Scientist, Samantha Brotherson, and Research Assistant, Tandika Harry, were the main persons behind the project. They explained that at each stage of the tissue culture process, mini experiments were carried out to identify the ideal condition/nutrients for the plants—this took about seven months.
“It’s the first time in Guyana we have had this opportunity to produce breadfruit tissue culture plantlets and it was successful,” Brotherson said.
One of the main advantages of tissue culture over traditional methods of propagation is that it allows for large scale and rapid multiplication of genetically identical and disease-free planting material for farmers all year around.
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