Enhancement of banana corm seedling growth at nursery stage

The supply of banana seedling in the market is lack of quantity and quality. There is a need to mass propagate the banana seedlings that has high quality within a short period of time to meet the market demand. This research was carried out in order to study the etiolation effect in shortened the nursery stage for mass propagation of banana seedlings thus achieving the uniform growth in nursery and to produce equivalent quality in term of growth performance of banana seedlings through growth enhancement in the nursery by the application of foliar fertilizer. Results obtained show that there are significant difference between the etiolated plants and non etiolated plants in term of plant height and plant pseudo stem girth measurement. The etiolated plants show faster height increment compared to the non etiolated plants. Etiolated plants also had better growth performance compared to reference plant. There is no significant different between the effect of four different concentration of foliar fertilizer on the growth performance of the etiolated plants. Etiolation can be used to induce the early plant height increment to mass propagate the banana seedlings. The application of foliar fertilizer is recommended to be used with the appropriate application and handling method to obtain the most optimum results.