Journal of Advances in Biology & Biotechnology

The present study focused on the in-vitro regeneration of Red Banana (Musa acuminata var. Lal Velchi) using shoot tip culture to standardize suitable growth media for establishment, multiplication, rooting, and hardening. Healthy suckers were collected from a mother block nursery and experiments was conducted at the Tissue Culture Unit, Biotechnology Laboratory, Botany Division, College of Agriculture, Pune.

Banana, a key tropical fruit crop from the genus Musa (family Musaceae). It ranks as the second most important fruit crop in India after mango and fourth globally, appreciated for its year-round availability, affordability, varietal diversity, taste, and nutritional value. Red Banana, in particular, is valued for its economic and health benefits but suffers from limited large-scale cultivation due to a lack of disease-free, quality planting material. Since it is seedless and propagated vegetatively through suckers, there is a high risk of transmitting soil-borne diseases and viral infections such as Banana Bunchy Top Virus (BBTV), which lowers productivity. Tissue culture offers an efficient alternative for mass multiplication of genetically uniform and disease-free plantlets using shoot tip explants.

The study aimed to identify the most effective media combinations for shoot and root induction and to evaluate the success rate during hardening. Four sub-experiments—establishment, shoot proliferation, rooting, and hardening—were conducted in a completely randomized design (CRD) with appropriate replications, and data was analyzed as per Snedecor and Cochran (1972). The sterilization protocol included sequential treatments with Bavistin, Tween-20, citric and ascorbic acids, sodium hypochlorite, and mercuric chloride, achieving the lowest contamination rate of 20%. The best results for shoot initiation (82.22% establishment in 24.24 days) and shoot multiplication (average of 6.98 shoots per explant) were obtained using Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium supplemented with 2.0 mg/L BAP, 60 mg/L adenine sulfate, and 20 mg/L ascorbic acid. Rooting was most successful (95.56%) in MS medium containing 2.0 mg/L IBA and 1.0 mg/L IAA, with roots developing in 2–3 weeks after inoculation. Well-rooted plantlets were washed, treated with 0.1% Bavistin, and hardened for acclimatization in polybags filled with a 1:1:1 mixture of red soil, vermicompost, and sand. Covered with transparent polythene to maintain humidity, was achieved a 90% survival rate during the hardening period in May and June.