Field performance of tissue-cultured ‘Josapine’ pineapple

Y.K. Chan and P.F. Lam

Abstract

Tissue-cultured plants of ‘Josapine’ pineapple were produced from buds obtained from crowns. Their field performance was compared with control plants produced by conventional quartering technique. Twelve agronomic characters were evaluated viz. fruit weight, plant weight, crown weight, fruit length, fruit diameter, core diameter, slip number, aerial sucker number, ground sucker number, flesh colour, total soluble solids and fruit:plant weight ratio. Tissue-cultured (TC) plants differed significantly from normally propagated plants in all but two of the characters viz. number of aerial suckers and flesh colour. TC plants were less vigorous, had lighter plant mass and produced smaller fruit. The small fruit of TC plants resulted in concomitantly thinner fruit core, lighter crown and an increase in total soluble solids. The population of TC plants also showed higher variability especially in all the fruit characters. The most evident somaclonal changes in TC plants were the occurrence of spiny plants (14.7%) and an increase in slip production (up to 7). However, the more worrisome behaviour of TC plants is the poor plant vigour and production of small, uneconomic-sized fruit. Certain agronomic adjustments may be necessary for the management of TC plants to accelerate plant growth and increase fruit size.

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