الفهرس 
ContentsOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
 |  | from | 135 |  |  |
| | | from | 135 | | |
Abstract
INTRODUCTION
Potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) belongs to the family Solanaceae.
It is the most important non-cereal food crop in the world. In Egypt, potato is one of the most important vegetable crop grown on a large-scale for either local consumption or exportation abroad to obtain hard currency. However, the total cultivated area was 211,461 feddans in 1998. The reciprocally yield was about 1,984,013 tons with an average of 9.4 tons/ Feddan, (Economical Report of Ministry of Agriculture, 1998). Potato is a crop plant to which in vitro culture technology has extensively been used. Cultures have been raised from shoots and meristcms, leaf and stem segments, anther and pollen, tuber explants and from mesophyll and callus protoplasts. Tissue culture techniques can be applied not only to increase propagation rates, but also to modify germplasm (Dodds, 1989). Metristem, shoot tip and nodal segment cultures are used, in general, for production of pathogen free material and rapid propagation too. On the other hand, in vitro regeneration of plantlets from somatic cells is a useful tool in the improvement of potato.
The ultimate goal of the present study is to evaluate thc plants derived through different in vitro techniques for two potato cultivars grown, widely, in Egypt, phenotypically and genetically.
Therefore, the investigation could be summarized in the following items:
I. Regeneration plants from different in vitro techniques, using different explants.
2. Investigating the somaclonal variation that might be occur as a result of in vitro cultures.