Comparison of conventional raised plants with in-vitro derived plantsof Stevia rebaudiana Bertoni in field

The present investigation was carried out at the experimental farm area of Medicinal Aromatic and Under Utilized Plants Section, Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, Chaudhary Charan Singh Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar in RBD design in 2013 to compare the agronomic characters of tissue culture raised plants of stevia (Stevia rebaudiana Bertoni) and conventionally grown plants. Initially tissue culture plants were comparable with that of conventionally grown plants but later tissue culture raised plants of stevia were found to be more vigorous over conventional raised plants for all the trai ts studied i.e. plant height, number of leaves per plant, leaf area, weight of fresh leaves, weight of dry leaves, weight of fresh stem, weight of dry stem, stem and leaf ratio (fresh and dry), total biomass yield per plant. This might be due to exogenous supply of PGR’s under in vitro conditions which may reflect during the cultivation in field and may cause variation in growth.