Test tube bananas

TISSUE CULTURE derived bananas have many advantages. Normally the bananas are propagated through the suckers collected from the mother plants. In many cases the suckers are collected from the diseased gardens, or from an unhealthy and low yielding garden which showed reduced yield.

The plants are derived from healthy mother plants having good yielding potential. The plantlets derived from such technique possesses uniform growth habit, come to flowering in more or less uniform time and the bunch yield is high.

Tissue cultured bananas have to be nurtured specially since they have to be acclimatised to the field conditions. All along, they have been brought in the laboratory under low light conditions and sudden exposure to the direct sun light may hamper their growth. Adequate care may be given for providing optimum light and temperature. Initially partial shade may be given. Moisture maintenance is a must since they succumb to drought conditions.

Fertilizer and irrigation need to be given adequately to cope up with good yield. Adequate plant protection measures have also to be taken depending upon the situation. At present there is a great demand among the farming community for the tissue cultured nendran bananas in Kerala.

H. Vijayaraghavan, K. Aravindakshan Tissue Culture Laboratory KHDP, Kerala Agricultural University Vellanikara, Trissur-680 656

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