Vetiver grass or Chrysopogon zizanioides (L.) Roberty (1960) is a sterile grass which can
regenerate vegetatively from clumps of the rootstock. This, as well as its vigorous and deep
root system and flood tolerance makes it an ideal candidate for the use in soil remediation
and erosion control. In South Africa, Hydromulch (Pty) Ltd. is part of the landscape, soil
reclamation and erosion control industry. The company uses vetiver grass on a wide scale and has accumulated a collection of isolates to serve as possible germ lines for industrial
use. Due to the different approaches in environmental management as well as
environmental factors, a variety of ecotypes form during the planting and acclimatisation of
this genus. Chrysopogon nigritanus (Benth.) Veldkamp (1999), which is a native species to
Africa, is closely related to C. zizanioides and differs only slightly from C. zizanioides on a
morphological level. The major difference between the two species is that C. nigritanus is
able to seed freely and thus the use of this species should be avoided. The need arose to
screen other non-fertile plants to uncover additional genotypic variety to enable
diversification of vetiver plantings. The aim of this study was to characterise the genotype of
19 isolates of vetiver obtained from Hydromulch (Pty) Ltd. via sequencing analyses of three
DNA fragments, ITS, ndhF and rbcL. In addition, the radial root anatomy was also
investigated and compared with the genetic analyses. According to the results generated
during this study, very little or no genotypical differences exist amongst the different isolates
available from the Hydromulch (Pty) Ltd. plant collection. Only in the case of the ITS
inference were differences observed between three of the studied isolates. There was no
significant difference between the different isolates based on the root anatomy, with the
exception of two of the studied isolates which formed starch granules. / MSc (Botany), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:NWUBOLOKA1/oai:dspace.nwu.ac.za:10394/11538 |
| Date | January 2014 |
| Creators | Diedericks, Vickey |
| Source Sets | North-West University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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