Abstract:

Sugarcane belongs to the allopolyploid plant which contains large number of chromosome with small size. The cytological research on sugarcane may hence be influenced by its difficulties to obtain chromosome products successful. In this paper, the root-tips of sugarcane were used to study the effects of the sampling time, the pretreatment chemical solution, hydrolysing time and staining on the chromosome squashing. The results showed that the optimal sampling time of roots was 15:00 pm under the lower temperature condition in winter. Among the four pretreatment of chemical solutions, the solution mixed with equal volume of saturated p-dichlorobenzene and 0.002 mol/L 8-hydroxyquinoline, was pretreated at room temperature for 4～4.5 h got best result. Root tips were then hydrolysed with the solution mixed by equal volume of 1 mol/L HCl and 45% acetic acid, for 8 min at 60℃, and stained with modified Carbol fuchsin solution. With this method a very good effect of chromosome squashing could be obtained.