Acclimatization and Growth Performance of Musa acuminata cv Berangan treated with Different Concentrations of BAP in vitro

Abstract

Banana is considered one of the most important cultivated tropical fruit in the world. Benzlaminopurine
(BAP) is commonly used for reducing the apical meristem dominance and inducing shoot formation of banana
culturein vitro. However, it causes a serious problem in micropropagation due to the occurrence of off-type
planting material. During the in-vitro stage, Musa acuminata cv Berangan were treated with different
concentrations of BAP (0, 5, 10, 15 mg/l) with 20 subcultures and control. Verification of plantlets’ morphologies
at nursery stage is necessary to eliminate inferior variants. Therefore, the objective of this study is to characterize
the potential variant of Musa acuminata cv. Berangan during the hardening stage that occur due to the effect of
high BAP concentration and subcultures. These studies were conducted for 13 weeks in the nursery stage at
Universiti Malaysia Kelantan tissue culture nursery. The seedlings performance were evaluated based on their
vegetative growth rates such as leaf area, plant height and pseudostem girth circumference. At the end of this
study, it was found that the control treatment produced the largest leaf area, plant height and pseudo-stem size
compare to other treatments. Banana seedlings with high growth rates were selected to reduce the maintenance
cost during the nursery stage