The assessment of screen house efficacy as a tissue culture growth chamber for Musa SPP

Abstract

The increase in food insecurity in developing countries is alarming but the tissue culture technique is expensive to practice. Therefore, this work assessed the efficiency of a screen house as a growth chamber. Suckers were prepared, and cultured into the MSbasal medium which was supplemented with commercial-grade sugar at a concentration of 30 g/l and a BAP concentration of 0.004 g/L. The cultures were kept in an ideal growth chamber with a regulated temperature of 28 °C and a screen house with varied temperatures that range from 37 °C to 48 °C. Explant responses were assessed with the number of shoots, shoot height, shoot health, and number of roots for three and five weeks after initiation. The result showed high significant difference at P ≤ 0.001, in the shoot proliferation at three and five weeks, with mean shoot numbers in the growth chamber of 1.01 at three weeks, and 1.96 at 5 weeks after initiation. The variation observed in plant height, plant health, and root number was not significant. The steady temperature variation observed in the screen house hastened phonological activities, hence, reducing the life cycle of the cultures. Screen house cultures are less viable and require attention during acclimatization and field transfer.