Banana tissue culture: from IDRC to IPB to the industry and back to IPB
2008
Patena, L.F. | Ines, M.B.C. | Caymo, L.S., Philippines Univ. Los Banos, College, Laguna (Philippines). Agricultural Sciences Cluster. Inst. of Plant Breeding | Barba, R.F., Department of Science and Technology, Taguig, Metro Manila (Philippines). National Academy of Science and Technology
In 1983, IDRC of Canada approved an invitational proposal, from Dr. R.M. Lantican, then director of IPB, prepared by LF Patena (Project Leader) and RC Barba (Coordinator). The objective was to promote planting of banana in rural villages as cheap source of food using micropropagation as the source of affordable if not free planting materials. In one year, the team completed the micropropagation of 50 banana cultivars resulting in a paper that was a finalist for the CSSP Best Paper Award. A training course was prepared by LF Patena and implemented by AB Zamora for six trainees from Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines. One Filipino trainee, Adonis Jadraque, a staff of Twin Rivers Research Center (TRRC)in Davao [Philippines], set up a laboratory to mass produce a new variety of banana. The result was very successful that other corporations set up their own laboratories, with the assistance of Lydia Magnaya, the other local trainee from BPI-Davao, to produce their own planting materials of Cavendish banana for export. Meanwhile, the IPB-PCTCL micropropagated banana to serve the original purpose of the project from 1984-1995 and stopped because of budget constraint. Lately, the Department of Agriculture (DA), Republic of the Philippines, recognized the need for planting materials and awarded IPB a grant to produce seeds and vegetatively propagated planting materials. This included a portion for the PCTC Laboratory to produce virus-free (indexed by BIOTECH) banana in 2006 and distribute/sell plantlets in 2007. The initiative of DA to support, and IPB to implement, the banana micropropagation, could be the start of a profitable commercial venture. A feasibility study is presented in a separate paper.
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