#Bindusmita Bhowmik

Demand for Banana has increased in Tripura over time. Different varieties of bananas including Sabri, Champa, Kanchkala, Sagar are being cultivated in this state and consumption of Banana is witnessing an upward movement.

However, Sabri variety of Banana has a good demand compared to other varieties. Accordingly, the Horticulture and Fruit Research Center has signed an agreement with the National Research Center for Banana (NRCB), Trichipalli, Tamil Nadu, South India recently to improve the quality of sabri banana as well as harness production.

The agreement was made with the aim of producing better and faster yielding seedlings free from diseases. Meanwhile, the Department of Horticulture and Soil Conservation under the Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare of the state government is encouraging farmers to cultivate Sabri banana. Seedlings of Sabri banana are given to farmers through various government schemes to this end.

The Department of Horticulture and Soil Conservation has a tissue culture lab at the Horticulture and Fruit Research Center in Nagichra area of Agartala for researching different types of fruit plants.

Here one of the seedlings produced by tissue culture method is sabri banana seedlings. Three researchers came to Agartala recently to arrange the necessary training for the researchers in the tissue culture lab of Nagichra Horticulture and Fruit Research Centre. Principal scientist Dr. S Bakiyarani was in the research team along with Post Doctoral Fellows respectively Dr. Karthik M. Raju and Dr. S Kalpana.

Dr.S Bakiyarani said the demand for sabri banana is high in Tripura state. Even as Sabari banana is being cultivated in the state, the yield is not good due to some diseases.

To improve the production of banana, some quality disease free materials are required which are not available in Tripura. The issue of the disease management is not possible with normal tissue culture method. So, a new method has to be introduced.

Moreover, in the tissue culture lab of Agartala, it was possible to produce a maximum of 200 to 300 seedlings, whereas in this new method, it will be possible to produce 40,000 to 100,000 seedlings at a time. He also said that the seedlings produced by the new method will be completely disease-free.

Jharna Dutta, chief officer assistant director of tissue culture lab of Nagichra said, it will be possible to produce a lot of high quality crops in this new method and if these seedlings are planted in the field, it is expected that a good yield will be obtained.

Moreover, with favoural demand, harnessing production following the method will open up new horizons of Sabari banana cultivation in the state.

#Bindusmita Bhowmik may be contacted at bindusmitabhowmik17@gmail.com