Effects of Benzyl Adenine and Thidiazuron on Shoot Regeneration of Cavendish Banana

Banana (Musa spp.) is one of the most important fruit crops in the world in terms of consumption and production. Commonly, bananas are propagated using conventional and in vitro techniques. Conventional methods generally involve vegetative propagation by the use of suckers, which is a time-consuming technique and is prone to various diseases. To overcome these problems, tissue culture technique has played a major role. With this technique, plant growth regulators are used to help improve rapid propagation for large-scale production. The plant growth regulators, benzyl adenine (BA) and thidiazuron (TDZ), which are both cytokinins, have gained attention for their effects on plant growth and development in tissue culture. In the present study, the effects of BA and TDZ on the shoot multiplication of Cavendish bananas in vitro were investigated. There were two experiments performed due to their being two types of explants obtained: one-month-old banana plantlets and one-month-old banana clumps. Culture I used one-month-old plantlets, and Culture II used one-month-old clumps. The results revealed that there was no significant difference in shoot formation between BA and TDZ at any concentration. However, the optimum concentration of BA was found to be 3 ppm for plantlets (Culture I), which resulted in 1.60 new shoots, and 4 ppm for clumps (Culture II) producing 4.00 shoots.  In the case of TDZ, 2 ppm which produced 2.60 shoots, was the optimum concentration for both types of explants. In addition, the study suggested that clumps were the most suitable choice for banana multiplication. Further investigation focusing on the effects of explant morphology and cutting technique on plant growth is recommended.