By Arooj Zulfiqar

ISLAMABAD, Aug 31, (INP-WealthPK): The introduction of tissue culture technology can increase the yield of the banana manifold by producing disease-free plants in Pakistan, WealthPK reports.

The enhanced field of bananas is essential for rural development and food security. The tissue culture is the best way to produce bananas. The plants produced through the new technology remain true to form and unaffected by pests and diseases.

The role of the banana in food security can be gauged from the fact that it is an essential food supplement for 400 million people and the primary source of daily energy for 600 million people across the globe.

Dr Muhammad Iqbal, a principal scientific officer at National Agriculture Research Centre (NARC), told WealthPK that tissue culture is the only way to guarantee that the newly planted banana plants are free of roundworms, viruses and pests. He said that the only authorised means to lawfully obtain planting material for banana trees outside quarantine-restricted locations is also tissue-grown plants.

“The traditional banana in Pakistan yields around five to six tonnes of fruit per acre, however, the newly developed tissue cultured crop will yield around 30 to 40 tonnes of bananas per acre, which has significant export potential,” he said. He added that the new banana has a little different flavour.

“In tissue culture, plants are grown in sterile sealed containers in a laboratory. The plantlets must be hardened off in a shade house before planting out in the field. The plants must stay in a high-humidity shade house setting for a few weeks to produce new leaves outside the tissue culture environment that are tougher and have a waxy cuticle, making them less susceptible to drying out and sun damage,” said Dr Iqbal.

He said that after the initial hardening off, the plants must be potted up progressively over the following few months with the humidity being decreased and the exposure to sunlight being gradually increased until the plants were fully sun-hardened and prepared for field planting.

“Tissue culture plants need to be planted more deeply than other plants in the field. This stops the growing suckers and rhizomes from poking above the soil line. Additionally, it is crucial to prevent plants from facing water stress. Because they lack the starch reserves that bits and suckers possess, tissue culture plants are less able to tolerate environmental challenges when they are first planted,” he said.

He said that PARC established specialised banana-producing laboratories in Karachi and Thatha where a single plant was purchased for Rs60 and a tissue-cultured novel variety was purchased for Rs100 per plant.

Dr Iqbal said that the government should involve all stakeholders to create a system through which farmers could communicate with the scientific community. He added that the government should also launch skill-development programmes for farmers besides providing microfinance to them, particularly in rural regions.

“Tissue culture technology is revolutionising agriculture all over the world. Farmers are increasingly turning to tissue culture to produce high-yielding and uniform crops since traditional agricultural techniques frequently fall short of fulfilling commercial needs,” he told WealthPK.

Credit: Independent News Pakistan-WealthPK