ODERHOWHO ANTHONY ONOVUGHUYIOVIE

In Nigeria, bananas and plantains are important staple and cash crops. Nevertheless, one of the major constraints to their production is the unavailability of healthy planting materials at planting time. Fortunately, micropropagation using bud manipulation technique could be used to produce large numbers of healthy plantlets in a short time. The response of five Musa cultivars to micropropagation using bud manipulation technique was evaluated in the horticultural Nursery of the Department of Crop Science, University of Benin, Benin City, Nigeria in June, 2017. Three sword suckers (about 5-40cm in height) of each Musa cultivar were used. Two sword suckers (about 5-40 cm in height) of each Musa cultivar were used. The corms of each cultivar were cut through to remove apical dominance, and were treated with neem leaves extract/fungicide, and allowed to air dry for 72 hours under a shade. This was followed by planting the corms of each cultivar in high humidity plastic propagators. The experiment was laid out in randomised complete block design with three replications. The results indicated that there was no significant difference among the Musa cultivars in their response to micropropagation. The mean number of sprouted shoots per corm for plantain was 3.2-4.3. while banana and hybrid had 1.0 and 1.5 respectively. The mean total number of plantlets produce among plantain cultivar varied from 8.7-14.0, while banana and hybrid banana 3.0. The response of banana and plantain bud manipulation technique depends on the variety, and since the technology is simple and affordable there is hope of high farmer adoption through workshop training and collaborative research with farmers.