Preliminary evaluation and selection of stevia under Malaysian conditions

Accessions of stevia (Stevia rebaudiana Bertoni) were introduced from Russia, Paraguay, Canada, USA and Japan. After vegetative propagation, they were field planted for observations on their leaf yield over 11 harvests in the period of one year. Of the 67 accessions, six with high rates of success in vegetative propagation (thus, yielding more plants) were selected. All of these originated from Canada, except for one from Russia. The selected accessions were evaluated in two field trials, over seven and six harvests. The highest yielding accessions were MSR 028, MR 012 and MR 007. MSR 028 topped 10 tlha in cumulative fresh leaf yields, which is equivalent to 2.8 tlha dry leaf yield and similar to what has been reported in Canada where stevia is planted as an annual. Thus, ratooning may be able to overcome the problem of early harvests (after 1 month) necessitated by the short daylength conditions in Malaysia.