Micropropagation of disease-free banana genotype 8818-william for field cultivation

Abstract

Banana is an economically important fruit crop that belongs to the genus Musa and is the main source of food in the world. The production of banana is affected by wide range of pathogenic organisms such as fungi, viruses, bacteria, insects, and nematodes. The conventional methods for the production of disease-free banana are hard to practice and time consuming. The micropropagation technique can be used to produce genetically same, disease free and pest resistant banana plants for commercial purposes. In the present study, the micropropagation technique has been used for the production of disease-free banana genotype 8818-William. During the micropropagation, evaluate the shoot multiplication, root induction and survival rate from the same explant source under similar physiological condition. The shoot multiplication rate of the explants was found to be significantly different with standard deviation of explant 1 (0.894), explant 2 (2.39), explant 3 (5.76), explant 4 (56.4) and explant 5 (108.9). The root induction frequency was also found to be different. The mean survival rate of about 83% was obtained for the plantlets grown under acclimatized conditions. The micropropagation technique can be successfully utilized for the production of disease-free banana plants with commercial applications. © 2021 The Author(s)