Modifikasi Unsur Hara Makro untuk Peningkatan Keragaan Planlet Stevia rebaudiana dalam Kultur In Vitro

Abstract

Stevia rebaudiana a shrub that originated from Paraguay, has been developed in many developed countries as natural sweetener to substitute sugarcane. Previous researches that focus on plantlet’s vigor by adding paclobutrazol and applying different light intensities had unsatisfied results. This research aimed to increase stevia plantlet’s vigor by modifying macro nutrients contained in MS and WP media. MS and WP media were used with macro nutrients at half stength, normal and double strength. After four weeks of culture, WP media promoted the growth to better conditions than MS media. WP media was superior in some parameters such as the height, number of nodes, number of roots, class of leaf color, size of leaf and biomass fresh weight, although some parameters such as stem diameter, number of buds, and survival rate ware not significantly different. Increasing the concentration of macro nutrients tended to give negative effect on the parameters. WP media with half-strength macro nutrient in general resulted in a better vigor of stevia plantlet’s