Vol. 12, Issue 11 (2023)

Author(s):
Aparna K Gokul, Vimi Louis, Anita Cherian K, Soni KB, R Selvarajan, Sible GV and S Backiyarani

Abstract:
Banana, a widely grown fruit crop worldwide faces challenges due to various abiotic and biotic factors. Being a vegetatively propagated crop, the production of high-quality, disease-free planting materials is vital to mitigate these challenges. Micropropagation, especially somatic embryogenesis, is a widely accepted technique for the mass multiplication of quality planting materials. However, the success of somatic embryogenesis varies with the genome type and also within the same genome groups. Therefore, standardizing culture conditions for each banana cultivar is essential. In this study, we successfully induced embryogenic calli from immature male flowers of the banana cultivar Nendran (Musa AAB). MS medium supplemented with different concentrations of 2,4-D, IAA, NAA and picloram was evaluated for callus development and embryogenesis. The explants were maintained on the same media, leading to the induction of friable calli over a span of approximately five months. These somatic embryos matured on the same medium. Subsequently, the mature somatic embryos were transferred to MS medium with Morel vitamins, BAP (0.2 mgL^-1), IAA (1 mgL^-1) and GA₃ (0.5 mgL^-1) which gradually led to the germination of shoot primordia. The regenerated plantlets exhibited no morphological abnormalities.