In vitro Cultivation of Forage Palm CV. Giant with Different Concentrations of 1-Naphthaleneacetic Acid under Artificial and Natural Light

The forage palm is cultivated in several arid and semi-arid regions of the world, characterized by water scarcity. In Brazil, the plant is a good option for forage production, meeting the food demand of animals, because it is a voluminous food, abundancy in water and nutrients. The use of in vitro micropropagation techniques, is an alternative to increase its production, allowing to produce large amount of disease-free plants in a short time and at reduced costs. This practice requires usually the use of growth regulators. Among these, auxin like 1-Naphthaleneacetic acid (NAA), is capable of exert the functions on the expansion cellular and in the cellular stretching, and may also promote the cellular division in tissue culture. Therefore, the objective of this work was to verify the difference in the development of inoculated plants of forage palm cv. Giant with different concentrations of auxin under controlled light and natural light. The experiments for this study were performed in the Plant Biotechnology Laboratory of the Empresa de Pesquisa Agropecuária de Minas Gerais - EPAMIG Norte, in Nova Porteirinha-Minas Gerais, between August 2015 and December 2015. It was conducted in a completely randomized design, in a plot subdivided 5×2 (NAA concentration × type of light). At 30 days of culture, shoot height and diameter, as well as the number of shoots and roots were evaluated. The best dose of NAA was established between 2-3 mg L-1, with better explant development in artificial light.