Influence of Additives on Enhanced in Vitro Shoot Multiplication of Stevia rebaudiana (Bert.)—An Important Anti Diabetic Medicinal Plant

The present study was designed to develop an efficient protocol for micro propagation of S. rebaudiana from nodal explants and study the influence of additives on enhancement of shoot proliferation. A two-step protocol has been standardized in which, first step comprising growth hormones concentration is optimized and it was found that MS medium supplemented with 2.0 mg/l BAP + 0.5 mg/l Kin + 0.1 mg/l NAA turned out to be the best treatment for shoot induction. In the second step, the best treatment for shoot induction was fortified with different growth additives for further shoot proliferation. Among the different types of additives used, casein hydrolysate at 0.05% (w/v) was found to be most effective, resulted with maximum of 15.0 shoots. 90% regeneration frequency and shoot length of 6.0 cm were recorded per explant. Thus, the procedure described is a quick and reliable method which could be applied for efficient large scale propagation, genetic transformation assays and secondary metabolite production of Stevia.