Making the Most of Banana January 2009
Tissue culture - cleaning up baby banana plants
William Mwinga and Habakkuk Khaamala: Scientist and farmer
Summary:
Bananas are typically multiplied by taking 'suckers' from a mature plant. Often farmers will exchange suckers with each other, to increase the diversity of their banana crop. However, one disadvantage with this method is that diseases can be retained in the sucker, causing loss of productivity in the new banana plant. Tissue culture is an alternative approach. Tiny pieces of banana are cleaned of disease and multiplied in a laboratory. A scientist and a farmer explain just how this works, and the benefits it offers.
View related article in New Agriculturist: Focus on... TC bananas bear fruit
Suggested introduction:
Change! Technology brings change. Since time immemorial man has come up with technology for a better living.
The banana industry - which worldwide produces dessert and cooking varieties - is definitely in need of innovations in order to improve productivity and quality.
And there is one innovation which is speeding up the production of healthy and disease-free young banana plants. It's called 'tissue culture' technology or TC for short. The question is will it improve the production of banana in Africa?
In order to understand what tissue culture technology is and how it is helping farmers in Kenya, Geoffrey Onditi went to meet a scientist and a farmer who know TC bananas very well indeed.
Tape in:
In my quest to find out what tissue...
Tape out:
...these farmers, they need to know.
Closing Announcement:
William Mwinga and Habakkuk Khaamala, two Kenyans who have seen the value of tissue cultured bananas.
Making the most of it:
Interview plant nursery staff about their tips for sourcing clean planting material for banana and other crops.
Further information:
William Mwinga (Technical Officer),
KARI - Mtwapa,
PO Box 16, Mtwapa 80109,
Tel: 254 41 5485842,
Fax: 254 41 5486207,
Email: karimtw@kari.org
Transcript
Onditi
In my quest to find out what tissue culture is I'm at the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute in Mombasa, Kenya. Mr Mwinga is a researcher. Mr Mwinga, can you explain what tissue culture is?
Mwinga
When we are talking about tissue culture, we should realise one thing probably, that we are developing a plant from a tissue. It's like a cell in the plant. Something like that. So what happens is the variety we have for example, take the most effectively growing area of that plant, the part that is actively growing. That one we take to the lab, and in the lab we cut it into very small, small pieces and then these ones are put in the media now, the planting media which is normally a gel.
Onditi
What can it be, the media?
Mwinga
It's a composition of various nutrients together, which enable it to develop roots and also develop a shoot. And after that then they are taken now into a polythene bag, which is actually filled with a media of soil. And then from there they are taken to the farm.
Onditi
I can see some varieties of banana here. Can you please tell us the type of banana that you are planting in this farm?
Mwinga
This is a demonstration plot. We are trying to show our farmers the varieties that can grow here.
Onditi
So this is a demonstration farm?
Mwinga
This is a demonstration farm.
Onditi
Which kind of bananas are you demonstrating now?
Mwinga
First we have the cooking types and the ones we call dessert type, those ones we eat fresh. The ones we are cooking, there are quite a number. All varieties can be taken to the lab to produce tissue culture material from them.
Onditi
Are farmers able to access this variety?
Mwinga
In this station we have an aside where we prepare those materials for them. But we also have started some hardening nurseries with the farmers.
Mwinga
It's a shed like that one where the farmers may be able to get their planting material and they raise it for the purpose of taking to the farm later.
Onditi
Well I'm now with Habakkuk Khaamala who is a tissue culture farmer in the Western province of Kenya. I'll be asking him to explain how tissue culture has really helped him earn a living.
Khaamala
I have been dealing with tissue culture bananas from 2000 and I can say I have achieved a lot in educating my children and even catering for other things like medication, clothing and all that from promoting these bananas.
Onditi
What made you to plant these types of bananas?
Khaamala
Actually it's because most of our local varieties had been affected by nematodes and these other diseases like bacterial wilt. So the production of bananas in the area was going down, down, down, down.
Onditi
As a farmer what can you say are some of the challenges that farmers get in marketing their products, especially the banana?
Khaamala
Poor infrastructure, price fluctuation, and then also storage facilities, because a banana is something which takes a very short time to get spoiled. So it needs better roads for it to be moved very fast to the market, and then also if there are cooling storage facilities, so that it can stay for quite a long time before it's sold on the market.
Onditi
Well Mr Habbakuk is a rare kind of farmer, especially here in Kenya. He has really managed to survive on tissue culture banana. Not many farmers are aware of this new development. Mr Mwinga, the researcher, briefly explains the advantages of this tissue culture technology.
Mwinga
One is that this comes in a large number of the same size. The tissue culture will come directly to you when it is of the same age and is uniform. It is also free from pests and diseases because it is just coming from a lab, it has been looked after properly. And I think that is one of the things that these farmers, they need to know. End of track.
