Effect of Organic Substrates on Macro-propagation of Banana under Island Conditions

Banana is an important tropical fruit crop grown globally and is the world’s most important agricultural food commodity. Plantation crops take a major share of cultivated area in Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Banana is one of the important fruit crops that is highly suitable to grow as intercrop in plantation based cropping system. Local varieties of banana like Korangi, Mitta Champa, Khatta Champa and Cheenakela are cultivated by the farmers traditionally to meet the local demand. However, in recent past growing commercial varieties of banana has become popular in the Island due to consumer demand. Traditionally banana is propagated by suckers and wide variability was observed in sucker production among the commercial varieties. Due to this large scale multiplication of banana through suckers could not meet the planting material demand in the Island. Hence, a study was undertaken during 2020-2022 to standardize the macro-propagation technology using different organic substrates in the commercial variety ‘Poovan’. Nine different organic substrate combinations were used in the present study to enhance the efficacy of lateral bud development and plantlet production. Suckers weighing 1.0 to 1.5 kg were used as the propagule. Among all the organic media combinations tested, significant differences were observed in terms of plantlet production, root and shoot growth. The treatment T8 (Coircompost: sawdust: FYM: vermicompost (1:1:1:1) with Arka microbial consortia @10 kg) produced maximum number of primary (5.60) and secondary buds (12.07) during primary and secondary capitation of decorticated mother rhizome. Early bud emergence (11.5 days), maximum number of plantlets (12-13 per mother rhizome), maximum shoot length (46.43 cm), maximum shoot girth (3.03 cm) and maximum number of leaves (4.50) were also observed in the treatment T 8. Minimum number of days was taken (52.70 days) for plantlet separation during secondary capitation in the same treatment T 8 suggesting that the treatment combination (Coircompost: sawdust: FYM: vermicompost (1:1:1:1) with Arka microbial consortia @10 kg) was effective for macro-propagation of banana Cv. Poovan under Island ecosystem.