Effect of BA and chitosan on In vitro Growth of Musa (ABB Group) ‘Kluai Namwa Mali-Ong’

Abstract

Fruit crops are very important in agricultural production. Bananas are the fourth most consumed food in the world, behind rice, wheat and maize. Despite its significant commercial value, banana production is faced with the problem of unreliable and unsafe planting materials, which hinder its production. Conventional planting materials (suckers) are of poor quality and also not enough to meet the increasing demand. Tissue culture techniques can however be exploited in solving this problem. Nevertheless, there are a lot of challenges hindering the micropropagation of banana. These challenges need to be addressed to enhance the effectiveness of this technique in banana production. The effect of chitosan on in vitro growth of micropropagated Musa (ABB Group) ‘Kluai Namwa Mali-Ong’ (ABB) was studied. Plantlets were cultured on MS medium supplemented with 0 and 5 mg/l Benzyladenine (BA) and chitosan at the concentrations of 0, 5, 10, 15, and 20 mg/l. The experiment was set up using Completely Randomized Design (CRD) with 5 replications. After 4 months, explants cultured on MS medium supplemented with 5 mg/l BA and 10 mg/l chitosan produced the maximum number of shoots (9.80±0.3 shoots/explant) and buds (2.25±0.3 buds/explant). The highest number of roots (2.67±0.4 roots/explant) were identified on plantlets cultured on MS medium supplemented with only 20 mg/l of chitosan. Supplementing MS medium with chitosan for the micropropagation of banana in this study helped to accelerate growth by increasing the number of shoots.