Overview
Banana production, an important component of the island economies of the South Pacific, is threatened by the fungal leaf disease black Sigatoka. An ACIAR project is conducting research into the disease, and this includes a plant improvement program for the region. Tissue culture holds great potential to supply uniform pest- and disease-free planting material for field plantings of bananas, and is already playing a vital role in the transfer of clean planting material between and within countries. This report, which includes 16 colour plates, describes methods for hardening-off tissue-cultured plantlets to enable successful handling from flask to field and beyond.
