Statistical technique for the evaluation of the effect of light quality on growing characteristics of in vitro cultures

The effect of environment on plantlets grown under in vitro conditions has been observed by many researchers. However, a lack of concern for the basic assumptions of statistical methods used may produce incorrect conclusions. In this study, three light treatments were employed to observe the effect of light quality on the growth conditions of Phalaenopsis plantlets in vitro. The results of this study demonstrate clearly the adequacy of the nonlinear models and F test on evaluation of factors affecting the growth characteristics of in vitro cultures. As the plantlets grew more culture days, the variance of growth properties also increased. The non-constant variance of datasets measured at different culture days violated the assumption of the analysis of variance (ANOVA) method.