Morphological and Biochemical Responses of Saccharum Spontaneum L. Accessions to Drought Stress

Glagah (Saccharum spontaneum L.) has potential value as a crop species and may also be used in sugarcane breeding programs; however, this germplasm has not been extensively used in breeding programs, primarily in relation to improve drought tolerance. The objectives of this experiment were to evaluate the effect of drought stress initiated at vegetative growth stage on growth, leaf proline content and protein pattern of seven glagah accessions (BOT-53, BOT-54, BOT-60, BOT-77, BOT-78, BOT-84, and BOT-88). The plants were propagated from single node stalk segments in polybag in the field under non-stress condition for two months. The two month-old plants were then subjected to drought stress by withholding watering for eight weeks. Untreated control plants were watered every two days. Results indicated that drought stress reduced plant height, stalk diameter and green leaf number. On the other hand, there was a little difference between drought-stressed and control plants in terms of proline content. The protein pattern showed that drought stress caused a change in gene expression in the form of induction or repression of protein expression. A specific protein with a low range of molecular weight (Rf value about 0.647) showed constitutively expressed in accession BOT-53 but drought-inducible expressed in BOT-54

Pemurnian dan Deteksi Serologi Patchouli Mottle Virus pada Tanaman Nilam

Patchouli mottle virus (PatMoV) is the most severe disease pathogen and causes substantial losses in many patchouli-producing regions in Indonesia. Serological detection tool for the disease was developed in this research. Virus isolation was conducted on Chenopodium amaraticolor resulted on the homogenous local lesions 6 days after inoculation. Virus purification was obtained from 200g inoculated leaves resulted on 2 ml virus solution with the concentration of 1 mg/ml. Polyclonal antibodies were produced on rabbits. Harvested antiserum was used for further virus detection by Indirect-Enzyme linked Immunosorbent assay (I-ELISA) and dot-immunobanding assay (DIBA) techniques. The antibodies were positively reacted with purified viruses, infected field collection of patchouli, and inoculated C. amaranticolor. On the other hand un-inoculated C. amaranticolor samples and healthy patchouli generated from tissue cultures gave negative reaction with the antibodies. This is the first report of cheap practical antibody production for PatMoV detection in Indonesia