Nodal Propagation Reduces Genetic Variability in Sweetpotato Clones
in HortScienceOur research examined whether plants originating from adventitious sprouts from fleshy sweetpotato roots are genetically more variable than plants that arise from pre-existing meristematic regions, i.e., nodes. Our study compared one plant each of `Jewel', `Sumor', and L87-95 clonally propagated for seven generations both nodally and through adventitious sprouts. PCR-based analysis of 60 samples (10 nodal and 10 adventitiously derived plants/genotype) showed 20% polymorphism among adventitious materials vs. 6% among nodally derived plants. An “analysis of molecular variance” showed that differences between propagation methods accounted for 30% of the total marker variability. Our results support previous findings that, relative to non-meristematic materials, meristematic regions strictly control cell division and DNA synthesis that exclude DNA duplication and other irregularities.
