Feasibility Of Producing Pathogen-Free Aroid Root Crops Commercially By Micropropagation

The potential of micropropagation as a means to control disease and to accelerate germplasm buildup has been demonstrated for many different kinds of vegetatively propagated plants, including the aroid root crops, Colocasia and Xanthosoma. However, because of labor costs and the necessity of expensive facilities, the direct commercial application of this technology has been limited to those plants, such as the foliage aroid Dieffenbachia. with relatively high cash values per propagating unit. Based upon computer models using industrygenerated data, we have determined that cost efficiencies are already near their theoretical optima for micropropagation using adventitious and axillary shoot proliferation technologies. Accordingly, alternative means must be deployed for commercial production of aroid root crops and other relatively low cash value aroids, such as Caladium. Robotics and synthetic seed technologies offer promise, but are still early in the developmental stage. Currently, the financial benefits of root crop micropropagation can only be realized when plants derived from this technology are field-grown and multiplied by conventional methods to numbers large enough to drop the cost per propagating unit to commercially acceptable levels. In instances where disease control is a primary objective, it may be necessary to establish blocks of mother plants isolated from major sources of inoculum.