Mass Production of Bananas and Plantains (Musa spp.) Plantlets through in vitro Tissue Culture Partway: A Review

Abstract

Bananas and plantains are among the most important food crops in Central and West Africa. Their plantation is lead to many problems. In the recent decades, biotechnology tools using in vitro culture technics are used for the mass and free disease plantlets production in order to increase the bananas production and the yield. The main way of in vitro tissue culture at this end is the direct organogenesis i.e., the ability of plant tissues to form various organs de novo by shoots or roots induction to differentiate from a cell or cell clusters. This review aims to summarize the main results obtained in the organogenesis of bananas and plantains (Musa spp.) under in vitro conditions and to identify the challenges during the process. The research articles used in this review show that micropropagation is a reliable alternative to conventional production system of bananas and plantains planting material. However, the use of the in vitro micropropagation for bananas and plantains entails choosing the optimal explant type and size according to objectives. Benzylaminopurine remains the preferred cytokinin for in vitro banana and plantain shoot proliferation, while the use of thidiazuron appears to be more and more common. Whichever cytokinin used, the optimal cytokinin concentration for shoot proliferation is genotype dependent. This review also focuses on the causes and control measures of the two major banana and plantain micropropagation constraints: lethal tissues browning/darkening and microbial contaminations. It showed that applying the suitable and available control measure, according to the evolution of culture, is necessary. All this available information on the in vitro conditions makes banana and plantain cultivars in vitro organogenesis possible.