Cucurbitaceae species constitute a family with a wide worldwide distribution and great nutritional and medicinal importance. The Cucurbita genus is the most important of the family with valuable species such as C. maxima and C. moschata. However, the large-scale production of sex specific plants using the conventional propagation methods has various limitations. The tissue culture such as micropropagation can help overcome these limitations. The aim of this study was to establish a protocol for ex vitro and in vitro clonal propagation of two varieties of Cucurbita moschata: ‘loche’, a variety of commercial vegetative propagation and endemic in Lambayeque, and ‘chuyán’ another variety of very restricted cultivation in some Andean regions of the north of the Peru. Likewise, the in vitro propagation of ‘chisguín’ (C. ecuadorensis), a threatened endemic wild species from the co...

Loxopterygium huasango Spruce ex Engl., of the Anacardiaceae family, classified critically endangered, is a forest tree with considerable value in the Seasonally Dry Tropical Forest (SDTF) in the northwest of Peru and south of Ecuador. The aim of the study was callus induction, propagation and germplasm conservation using in vitro tissue culture techniques. In vitro seed germination (90%) was obtained on Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium supplemented with 5.0 mg/L-1 GA3. The cotyledonal nodes of seedlings were used as explants to initiate the growth of the apical shoots, in culture medium with the IAA-GA3 interactions, without observing growth of the axillary buds. The highest rate of friable callus induction (100%) was recorded on MS medium containing 0.1 to 5.0 mg/L-1 2,4-D in cotyledons and hypocotyls explants after 30 to 45 days of culture. The profuse roots formation was the only morp...

Plant biotechnology is one of the most important tools presently available and methods to genetically manipulate plants to exhibit greater productivity, tolerance to physical and chemical stress, and resistance to pests and diseases have been developed in recent decades. In vitro plant tissue culture has contributed significantly to this purpose. The objective of this study is to apply various techniques developed by in vitro tissue culture in seed germination, meristem culture for virus elimination, micropropagation, conservation, international transfer of germplasm, and induction of various morphogenic processes that lead to the genetic variability known as somaclonal variation. The application of this set of biotechnological techniques, in crops such as cassava, sweet potato, potato, native forest species as Cedrela odorata, Ficus spp. Loxopterygium huasango, and others, sugar cane, r...

Potato plants are often subjected to heat stress during growth and development, resulting in loss of yield and quality. However, the possibility exists that commercially important genotypes show tolerance to heat stress. In this study, we aim to investigate the morphological and physiological effects of moderate conditions of heat stress on tuberization in nine potato genotypes, and how it affects propagation using an ex vitro and in vitro system. The plant material came from the In Vitro Germplasm Bank of the International Potato Center (CIP). The incubation temperatures of the cultures in in vitro and ex vitro conditions were the ambient in the laboratory and greenhouse, respectively. In in vitro system a randomized complete block design was employed in nine genotypes, two treatments: multiplication culture medium and the same culture medium supplemented with 8.0% sucrose and 500 mg/L-...