Physiology, growth pattern and flowering of tissue culture banana musa (aab) nendran

Abstract

The study entitled “Physiology, growth pattern and flowering of tissue culture banana Musa (AAB) 'Nendran’“ was conducted at the Department of Pomology and Floriculture, College of Horticulture, Vellanikkara during 1996-97 inorder to compare the performance of tissue culture plants against the conventional suckers under varied fertilizer doses and methods of application, to ascertain superiority, if any, of the former over the latter. During the early stages of growth, the vegetative characters recorded higher values for the sucker derived plants whereas during the later periods, the plant height, girth, number of functional leaves per plant and the total number of leaves were more in tissue culture plants. Leaf area of D-leaf, total leaf area, leaf area index and leaf area duration showed significant superiority of the tissue culture plants over the sucker progenies. Crop growth rate and net assimilation rate was significantly influenced by the different treatments and they recorded higher values for the tissue culture plants. The time taken for bunch emergence and duration of the crop was less in sucker progenies. The number of suckers per plant was more in tissue culture plants. Dry matter production by different plant parts as well as by the whole plant was higher in tissue culture plants and they produced heavier bunches than sucker progenies. However in both the planting materials, higher levels of fertilizer dose (M2) and method of application (S2) recorded superiority with respect to bunch weight per plant and bunch yield per hectare. Fruit quality was also more in tissue culture plants.

The nutrient concentration and nutrient uptake were significantly more ii leaves during the critical stages of growth. The total nutrient uptake by the plant recorded higher values for the tissue culture plants. Manurial doses and methods of application did not significantly influence the total uptake of nutrients by plants. The results of the study undoubtedly proved the superiority of tissue culture plants where in the highest yield of 12.22 kg obtained in T1M2S2 was 43 per cent more than the lowest of 8.54 kg in T2M1S1. Application of higher dose of fertilizers (300:115:450 g NPK per plant) recorded 9.0 per cent increase in yield over the recommended dose of 190:115:300 g NPK per plant. Percentage yield increase was 5.77 when six split application was resorted to instead of two splits.