Production of Quality Planting Materials

Agriculture > Fruit Crops > Banana (Musa spp.)

Crop Management

Production of quality planting materials

Vegetative Method

Commercial bananas are seedless and propagated exclusively by vegetative means.

The banana has a reduced underground stem, called the rhizome, which bears several buds. Each of these buds sprouts and forms its own pseudostem and a new bulbous rhizome. These daughter plants are called suckers. Banana is mostly propagated by rhizomes and suckers viz. sword suckers and water suckers. Sword suckers have a welldeveloped base with narrow sword-shaped leaf blades at the early stages. Water sucker posses broad leaves, which do not produce healthy banana clumps. Suckers of 2-4 months age are selected.

Sucker

Since banana is highly unstable in genetic constitution, the suckers/rhizomes should be selected from plants, which are healthy, having all the desirable bunch qualities and high yielding ability (possessing atleast 10 hands in a bunch).

Tissue Culture

Being a triploid plant, there is no seed setting, thus propagation by seed is not possible and the crop is vegetatively propagated by planting rhizomes / suckers. The soil borne diseases transmitted through rhizomes and the bunchy top disease are a major concern. Tissue culture offers method for faster multiplication of superior clones and production of disease free propagules using meristem tip culture method.

The process involves initiation of cultures from sterilized shoot tips obtained from the parent banana plant, shooting and rooting in the test tube, primary hardening in the laboratory, secondary hardening in the nursery and planting in the field.

Advantages of Tissue Cultured Banana

Disease free elite varieties
Rapid multiplication & early harvesting
Uniform size and age of plants
High quality fruit bunches
Available throughout the year

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