Aseptic multiplication of banana from excised floral apices.
Most economically important bananas and plantains are large triploid seedless herbs that must be propagated vegetatively by removing small side shoots or "suckers" from the parent plant or by planting seed pieces of larger corms.  Consequently, multiplication of stock material is time consuming,  Recently, the rapid production of young banana plantlets suitable for use as "seed" material has been described.  Vegetative shoot apices were isolated and multiplied using aseptic tissue culture techniques.  Although these multiplication systems, once established, can produce thousands of plants in a relatively short period of time, their establishment necessitates the initial sacrifice of an individual specimen, which may not always be desirable or prudent should a limited parent stock be available.  We describe here the production and multiplication of rooted banana plantlets from the isolation and culture of terminal floral apices.
Cronauer
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SS
Department of Biochemistry, State University of New York at Stony Brook 11794, USA.
Krikorian
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AD
D001207:Asepsis; D003470:Culture Media; D046508:Culture Techniques; D005638:Fruit / Q000254:growth & development*; D018520:Plant Shoots / Q000254:growth & development*
D003470:Culture Media