Scientists help youth cultivate bananas via tissue culture

LUCKNOW: Two scientists, Maneesh Mishra of ICAR-Central Institute for Subtropical Horticulture (CISH), Lucknow and Dr T Damodaran from Central Soil Salinity Research Institute (CSSRI), Lucknow are training local youths on ‘secondary hardening of tissue culture (TC) banana’.

One such trainee, Eklavya Dixit, after training at CISH started his own nursery of TC banana in the name of Satwik Biotech at Malihabad. He purchased tissue cultured primary hardened plantlets of banana from a tissue culture laboratory of Bengaluru at the cost of Rs 6 per plantlet and started this venture with 50,000 plants.

He built two shade net houses under the guidance of CISH, Lucknow and got subsidy of 50% for construction of shade net house from NHB, Government of India. Eklavya is fresh graduate and undertook training on nursery organized at CISH, Lucknow sponsored by Skill Council of India and came to know about banana tissue culture.

Shailendra Rajan, director, CISH, Lucknow said he successfully utilized capacity building programme for youth in niche area of horticulture through Agriculture Skill Council of India programme.

Several entrepreneurs from the same training batch have come forward in nursery business. However, tissue culture hardening nursery is a new venture for youths in Malihabad area, Rajan said.

Initially, a lot of problems related with the rotting of the plantlets was observed due to excessive watering, however with regular interactions with the team of ICAR scientist and as a part of farmers FIRST project, Eklavya could easily pick up the tips and finally succeeded in producing good quality disease-free plants. His plants are different from other nursery as the plantlets were treated with CSIR Bio during hardening and this treatment takes care of several diseases. “Development of such nurseries is very much required for the flourishing banana industry in Uttar Pradesh,” CISH director said.