Effects of Substrates, Weight and Physiological Stage of Suckers on Massive Propagation of Plantain (Musa Paradisiaca L.)

Abstract

Plantain (Musa paradisiaca) serves as a major staple food. However, its production is seasonal and this situation led to a shortage of more than five months (June to October). The extension of cultivable areas and the use of high yielding improved varieties are severely limited by the low availability of planting materials free of diseases and parasites. The purpose of this study is to establish optimal conditions for the mass production of clean planting materials. Freshly harvested suckers from plantain namely ‘‘Corne 1’’, ‘‘Orishele’’, ‘‘French 2’’ and ‘‘Red Ebanga’’ and suckers dried and stored for one month were trimmed and peeled so as to have four weight ranges. The prepared suckers were planted in propagator filled with different substrates. The results revealed that whatever the culture substrate used, the shortest time to induce shoots and the higher number of shoots were observed with dehydrated and non-dehydrated suckers larger than 750g. Non-dehydrated Suckers with this weight expressed the longer lifetime (124-140 days). Among the substrates tested, shoots induction was faster with non-dehydrated suckers on fiber coco (12 days) and with dehydrated suckers on mix sawdust (15 days).

Macropropagation in Banana: Response to Hormone and Genome in Sucker Production

“…The post-harvest banana corm also varied in their fresh weight (Table 3). The genotypes Madhurangbale (AAB) and Manohar (AAB) were found to weigh 5.56 kg and 5.22 kg respectively and this may state that banana corm of higher fresh weight produces a greater number of suckers which may be due to the greater capacity of the large corms to supply basic substances for the sucker production, Similar result was also reported by Tchoa et al [20]. However, the genotype Pantharaj (ABB) with 5.31 kg generated only 7.67 number of total sucker and this may be due to the genotypic condition in which the cultivar Kothia of same genomic composition with 2.06 kg were also found to generate 5.66number of total sucker [21].…”