Propagation of banana by tissue culture technique

Quality planting material is the key for successful production of banana. India has largest area of 5.5 lakh he underba,nana, requiring 0.125 billion plants per annum. This requirement Is reduced by 50 and 33% in two, subsequent years depending on replanting of plantation after 1+1 crop or 1+2 crops respectively. This is an enormous requirement in a vegetatively propagated crop like banana. Presently, 15–20 viable companies are involved in production of tlssue-cultured banana with an annual production of 2–5 million plantlets. Thus, only 4.0% is being produced through tissue culture, while the rest 96% of the planting material applies both to suckers and tissue-cultured plants. Natural regeneration is very slow in banana leading to production of only 5 to 20 suckers in its lifetime depending on variety thus, micropropagation remains as the next best alternative with tremendous potential for production of quality planting of material. Thus, the farmers are benefited by tissue cultured plant because of ease of multiplication of their variety of choice and It also save the cost of planting material. The mlcropropagation Is a user friendly techniques which does not require much expertise and is suitable for adoption by small and marginal farmers. However, success of mlcropropagatlon depends on method, variety and price of Initation media in case of ex situ multiplication.