PLANT TISSUE CULTURE In vitro effects of GA 3 on morphogenesis of CIP potato explants and acclimatization of plantlets in field Shahid Ali 1 & Naeem Khan 2 & Faisal Nouroz 3 & Shazia Erum 4 & Wajid Nasim 5 & Muhammd Adnan Shahid 6 Received: 29 March 2017 /Accepted: 21 November 2017 / Editor: Zeng-Yu Wang # The Society for In Vitro Biology 2018 Abstract Improvement of potato has been accomplished using conventional and non-conventional approaches coupled with numerous tissue culture procedures. The aim of the pres- ent study was to assess the efficacy of gibberellic acid (GA 3 ) on the morphogenesis of International Potato Center (CIP) potato explants and acclimatization of plantlets in the field. Nodal segments as an explant source (1–1.5 cm) were isolated from 31 CIP potato plantlets and were inoculated into Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium supplemented with 0.0 (control), 0.1, 0.5, or 1.0 mg L -1 of GA 3 . The variation in growth parameters of the cultivars was then observed. The highest shoot induction occurred in MS medium containing 1.0 mg L -1 GA 3 with an increase in the inter-nodal distance between nodes as compared to other treatments. Higher con- centration (1.0 mg L -1 ) of GA 3 significantly increased plant height and root length in the treated germplasm however; this concentration was inhibitory to the number of nodes and roots per plant. The number of leaves was significantly increased in plants receiving GA 3 treatment at lower concentration (0.1 mg L -1 ). The 31 CIP genotypes were transplanted to the field and checked for yield quality traits. It was concluded from the results that GA 3 had significant effects on morpho- genesis and was effective in the acclimatization of CIP potato plantlets in field. Keywords CIP . Gibberellic acid . Genotypes . MS medium Introduction Potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) is considered one of the most important crops after wheat, rice, and maize (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations 2008). As a food crop, potato has great potential and can supply high quality food within a relatively short period of time and is one of the cheapest sources of energy. According to Stevenson et al.(2001), potato produces 54% more protein per unit land area than wheat and 78% more than rice. Potato originated in the Andes Mountains of South America (Khoso 1988). Micro-propagation is used for the improve- ment of cultivated potato plants (Badoni and Chauhan 2009; Rahman et al. 2010). Propagation methods using meristems tips, nodal cuttings, and microtubers are also used in in vitro propagation and are more effective for maintaining the genetic integrity of the multiplied clones (Khanam et al. 2013). Propagation in tissue culture is used to produce a large number of plantlets in a short time from single plantlets. Through micro-propagation, sufficient progeny can be pro- duced for cultivars lacking seeds. Micro-propagation is a via- ble process that produces rooted plants ready for acclimatiza- tion in the field (Bhatia and Ashwath 2008). Different crop modification techniques such as cross breed- ing, mutagenesis, polyploidy, protoplast fusion, transgenesis, and genome editing are used to improve desirable traits. A rapid rise in population requires an increase in food * Shahid Ali shahidsafi926@gmail.com 1 Plant Epigenetics and Development Northeast Forestry University, Harbin, China 2 Department of Plant Sciences, Quaid-I-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan 3 Department of Botany, Hazara University, Mansehra, Pakistan 4 National Agricultural Research Center, Islamabad, Pakistan 5 COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Vehari, Pakistan 6 Horticultural Sciences Department, IFAS, University of Florida, Gainesville, USA In Vitro Cell.Dev.Biol.—Plant https://doi.org/10.1007/s11627-017-9874-x