In vitro regeneration and acclimatization of pineapple (Ananas comosus L. Merr. var. MD2)

Ananas comosus L. Merr. is asexually propagated through the conventional method fromits crowns, slips, hapas, and suckers. Plant tissue culture technique is applied for massproduction of clonal pineapple within a shorter period compared to conventionalpropagation. Hence, this research aims to study the effect of coconut water and optimumsucrose concentration for in vitro growth performance of pineapple. In addition, thisresearch also aims at optimizing the fertilization mechanism for the acclimatization ofclonal pineapple ex vitro. The in vitro regeneration was performed by adding a differentvolume of coconut water and concentration of sucrose into the prepared culture mediasupplemented with 2.00 mg/L 6-Benzylaminopurine (BAP) and 1.00 mg/LNaphthaleneacetic acid (NAA). For acclimatization method, two different types offertilizer served as treatments which were compound fertilizers (NPK 15:15:15) andcontrolled-release fertilizer (AJIB CRF, NPKMg 10:5:18:3). The planting media consistedof topsoil, sand, and compost composition in a ratio of 2:1:2. Results showed that culturemedia contained 20.00 mL/L coconut water obtained the highest number of shoots(45.33±7.56). On the other hand, culture media supplemented with 30.00 g/L sucroseconcentration showed the highest number of shoots (47.25±10.81). Meanwhile, theacclimatization method found that controlled-release fertilizer (AJIB CRF), NPKMg(10:5:18:3) showed about 90% of survival rate. The mean value for the number of leavesand leaves length (cm) in acclimatized clonal pineapple using Controlled-release fertilizer(AJIB CRF) were 5.48±0.96 and 6.00±1.04, respectively. Therefore, the addition ofcoconut water, optimum sucrose concentration, and the suitable type of fertilizer in both invitro and ex vitro promote a better growth performance of clonal pineapple.