Advantages of cultivating Tissue Culture Banana

ADVANTAGES OF CULTIVATING TISSUE CULTURE BANANA BY ADOPTING
HI-TECH CULTIVATION PRACTICES:

The traditional banana farming encountered various problems like non-availability of disease-free uniform suckers, high mortality in the field during establishment due to excessive flood irrigation, long gestation period and low yield. The reasons behind this could be adduced to non-availability of disease-free quality planting material and lack of hi-tech farming awareness among the growers. Mass propagation of disease-free high yielding clones to produce consistently uniform and true to type plants by tissue culture is the only alternative for banana plantations.

The advantages of tissue culture raised banana plants are:

• True to the type of mother plant. No room for variations in a well managed plant production.
• Better establishment in the field due to accelerated growth and well developed root system for better absorption of nutrients. 
• Infection free planting material (Pest free, Disease free and Virus free).
• Uniform growth of all the plants unlike plants cultivated using suckers. So minimum number of harvests that reduces the cost and scope for getting a uniform ratoon crop.   
• Optimal yield is ensured following proper cultural practices. 
• Shorter harvesting period (Earlier maturity of crop) enables flexibility in accordance with planting season and marketing demand. Because of shorter crop duration of crop, two successive ratoons are possible with reduced cost of cultivation and increased profits.
• Large quantities of healthy and uniform plants can be supplied at a time round the year. 
• 95 to 98% plants bear bunches.
• High benefit to cost ratio ensure good profits.

A comparison chart describing added advantages of Tissue Culture Banana cultivation over  plants cultivated using suckers is given here below:

Benefits of choosing Tissue Culture Plants - Chart I

Benefits of choosing Tissue Culture Plants - Chart II

Though majority of the plant tissue culture biotech companies in India are engaged in the production of different varieties of Banana seedlings, the variety 'Grande Naine' (misspelt widely as 'Grand Nine' and 'G9') occupies major share. Robusta, Williams, Red banana, Hill banana (Virupakshi), Elakki and Malbhog from Assam are also produced.

Regards,
A.Vishnu Sankar

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