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VISIT TO BANANA IN-VITRO (TISSUE

CULTURE) PROPAGATION PROJECTS

IN UGANDA

2th to 4th June 2010

Joseph Sekiku

Pastory Rugarabamu

David Itegereize

With kind support of ACTION IN AFRICA- ASHTEAD (UK)

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VISIT TO TISSUE CULTURE/ IN-VITRO PROPAGATION

LABORATORY IN KAMPALA:

Introduction:

Bananas are an important crop for the people in Nyaishozi

(Karagwe) for their food as well as income. However, the banana

crop is being threatened by a number of factors:

a) Prevalence of diseases and pests

b) Diminishing soil fertility due to soil exhaustion and poor land

use management practices

c) Increased population and therefore pressure on food

reserves

However, these have come at a time when new opportunities in

marketing, processing and distribution are emerging due to

improved road and communication infrastructures, new markets

being opened including local, national, regional and international

markets.

These opportunities therefore make it necessary and important to

be considered, while designing poverty eradication plans and

improved livelihood for the people in Nyaishozi.

Therefore, the visit to banana propagation projects in Uganda,

was intended in one part to find interventions that could steer the

rural farmer in Nyaishozi towards better standards of living

through improved production. Growing and selling of bananas on

the local and export markets.

The visit was therefore organized and took place from the 2- 4th

June 2010 and was undertaken by a team composed of : Joseph

Sekiku, Patory Rugarabamu and David Itegereize and was

supported by ACTION IN AFRICA- ASHTEAD, UK.

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RATIONALE OF THE VISIT:

Following from my former place of employment Bio-versity

International (formerly International Network for the

Improvement of bananas and plantains – INIBAP) I have been

informed of the developments in the banana breeding sector.

The project was initiated purposely to produce clean planting

banana materials in the wake of nematodes and other pests.

Intrinsically though, the vegetative propagation (using tissue

culture) was seen as a remedy to in-situ conservation of best

banana cultivars.

Normally bananas are propagated naturally through suckering

and de-suckering. This process is prone to transfer of diseases

from mother to sibling. In case where good yielding cultivars

have fallen prey to pests and diseases, it has become very

difficult to reproduce bananas cultivars and some of them are in

danger of extinction.

Therefore, INIBAP initiated breeding programs with support from

the University of Luven in Brussels. Vegetative propagation was

therefore seen as a remedy and has been widely disseminated

leading to the creating of banana breeding laboratories in Africa.

BANANA LAB IN KENYA:

The banana laboratory in Nairobi is interested in CAVENDISH type

of bananas. These are not suitable for Karagwe. The cavendish

type of bananas are mainly a plantain type not goof for cooking

nor for beer or dessert, so not a likely commodity for Karagwe

farmers.

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BANANA IN-VITRO/ TISSUE CULTURE PROPAGATION IN

UGANDA:

Following the successful establishment of the banana propagation

lab in Kenya, a new laboratory was established in Uganda under

INIBAP. This was later transferred to private investors.

Currently, the work of micro-propagation is undertaken by the

main KAWANDA AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE and a

private company called Agro-Genetic Technologies Ltd (AGT

managed by Mr. NSUBUGA ERASTUS- Private Tissue Culture, who

is multiplying clean tissue cultured planting materials for

distribution to farmers.

ACTUAL VISIT TO THE BANANA PROPAGATION UNITS IN

UGANDA:

1. Visit to AGRO GENETIC TECHNOLOGIES LTD: This laboratory

and propagation units are located at Mityana Road and his

contact details are:

Mr. Erostus W.N.Nsubuga,

Agro-Genetic Technologies Ltd (AGT)

Buloba Town,Mityana Road,

P.O.Box 11387

Kampala, Uganda

A physical visit was made to the above company which has a

propagation laboratory just outside of Kampala. The place is

divided into 3 departments: Laboratory for in-vitro/ tissue

culture; propagation nursery and a sales/ extension department.

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PROCEEDINGS WHILE AT AGT LTD:

i) A meeting was held with the

management of the laboratory and

the line managers of the different

departments.

ii) Physical visit was made to the different

sections, whereby we were offered the

opportunity to see, learn and ask questions.

iii) Lines for future collaboration were explored.

iv) A few dozens of banana plants were bought to bring back

to karagwe. 6 different types of banana cultivars were in

production and we brought back with us a dozen of each

cultivar.

2. Kawanda Agricultural research Station:

A visit was made to the national agricultural research station.

Two main departments were visited. These included the

banana promotion department and the micro or in-vitro tissue

culture propagation laboratory.

i) Site visit and study tour was

conducted in all areas of the

laboratory by the specialized

staff of the project. And we had

the opportunity to ask all questions that we possibly had.

ii) Study tour was conducted to the

propagation nursery at NARO.

iii) A meeting was conducted whereby the staff involved in

the project made a presentation about the project,

outlining the rationale for the project, areas for future

collaboration and advice for scaling up and penetration

into other countries within the region.

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SOME TECHNICAL INFORMATION:

a) Why tissue culture:

Banana production especially in Eastern Africa has been in decline over the last ten years primarily because of crop diseases and pest infestations, as well as environmental degradation.

Tissue culture propagation is the process of growing tissue culture for plant shoot-tips in a laboratory until they are ready for transplant into the field. Because of the highly controlled starter environment, tissue culture propagation significantly reduces disease and dramatically improves yield when coupled with good agronomic practices she says.

Long term objectives of the project:

• The tissue culture program seeks to increase farmer incomes, alleviate hunger and poverty and develop agri-based businesses to improve the economy of the community and

surrounding areas.

• The tissue culture banana project encourages farmers to use clean, disease-free, and insect-free planting materials, such as those from tissue culture propagation.

• Tissue culture propagation contrasts with the current practice of transferring banana suckers between farms.

While reflecting a long-standing heritage, this traditional approach increases the risk of transmitting pests and spreading disease among the banana crops.

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• Short term objectives of Banana Tissue Culture

• Improve food security among resource-poor farming

communities in sub Saharan Africa

• Reduce poverty among small-scale banana farmers in sub

Saharan Africa.

• Facilitate access to tissue culture plantlets by supporting establishment of distribution nurseries within farmers’ reach

through micro-credit schemes.

• Reduce post-harvest losses and increase incomes from banana by identifying and linking farmers to promising markets for both fresh and processed products.

• Enhance banana utilization by promoting a range of

processed products locally and internationally.

• Assess investment options for expanding banana-based enterprises in rural economies and promote uptake of the

promising technologies to new potential investors.

Future Intervention/Strategies to be adopted by ACTION IN AFRICA IN NYAISHOZI

• Carry out on-farm trials in Nyaishozi (Karagwe) to evaluate

suitability of tissue culture cultivars to the fields.

• Conduct participatory rural appraisals to identify production constraints, major cultivars preferred by farmers, marketing

channels and improvement opportunities.

• Training of trainers, farmer groups and extension officers in

farm management, post-harvest handling, marketing skills

and value-addition.

• Establish community nurseries in Nyaishozi, for easy access

to tissue culture banana plantlets.

• Conduct socio-economic and market studies to understand the dynamics in growing, utilization and marketing bananas.

• Link farmers to markets, micro-credit schemes and encourage them to form peer groups to increase their

bargaining power.

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Tissue Culture Capacity Building Benefits to Farmers

• Minimize losses due to better post-harvest handling skills and value-addition.

• Reduce yield losses due to diseases and pest through easy access to large quantities of quality clean, high yielding

plantlets or seedlings

• Improve incomes due to higher prices for tissue culture

bananas

• More farmers use their incomes from bananas not only to increase their orchards but also diversify into other farming activities like livestock rearing.

• Reduce gender gaps due to improved incomes among

women.

• Access to micro-credit will allow more farmers to establish

commercially viable orchards

• Increased access to better markets like supermarket chains. Uniform maturity allows for harvesting of large quantities of

bananas to supply large markets.

• More farmers trained on farm management skills and group dynamics

Dealing with banana bacterial wilt (in Uganda)

Banana production in east Africa is being threatened by banana

bacterial wilt. Questions surrounding this were asked to the experts at NARO. The experts say, banana bacterial wilt can be controlled and where possible completely eradicated.

This require highly controlled agronomic measures whereby diseased plants are destroyed completely while new plants are

completely disease free.

Scientists in Uganda have developed GM bananas that show promising resistance to the deadly banana Xanthomonas wilt (BXW) disease.

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Bananas are Uganda's leading non-cereal crop with some 70 per cent of the population depending on it as staple food. More than US$200 million has been lost to BXW infestation since 2001. The disease has also been reported in Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Rwanda and Tanzania.

Now, the banana plants modified with two genes derived from sweet peppers (Capsicum annuum) show resistance to the disease caused by the bacterium Xanthomonas campestris pv.

musacearum.

Principal investigator Leena Tripathi, a Ugandan-based biotechnologist from the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, Nigeria, said inserting the genes - plant ferredoxin-like amphipathic protein (PFLP) and hypersensitive response-

assisting protein (HRAP) - separately in four local banana varieties is giving encouraging results (see GM bananas to fight wilt in Africa).

FUTURE PLANS at NYAISHOZI:

Clean planting materials remain the only solution for improved

banana production in Karagwe. With experiences gained from the

two projects, the following interventions are recommendable for

replication in Nyaishozi:

a) Identify and train farmers in Nyaishozi about the current

situation of banana production, highlighting problems

associated with the production systems, while at the same

time pointing to the potential of bananas for food security

and income generation in the district.

b) Establish a multiplication/ propagation nursery at Nyaishozi.

This is easy as in-vitro plantlets can be procured from AGT

or from Kawanda agricultural research and transported

easily in jars or bottles. This will be worked out.

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c) Suitable in-size and popular cooking varieties can easily be

propagated. The best advantage of this: they are disease

free.

ASSOCIATED COSTS/ WHAT IS REQUIRED:

The following are pertinent according to my observations for a

successful establishment of disease free banana planting

materials in karagwe/ Nyaishozi:

1. ESTABLISH BANANA PROPAGATION NURSERY (IES) IN

NYAISHOZI

This would involve establishment of the following

infrastructures:

a) A working building (semi- laboratory) where tissue

culture plants procured from the laboratory in kampala

can be kept before, potting and establishing into

nurseries, to prepare them for distribution to farmers.

b) Establishment of propagation nurseries for plantlets to

grow into transplantable banana plantlets.

2. WATER reservoirs for watering

3. Transport facility preferable a pick-up truck for the collection

tissue culture materials from Kampala; and for eventual

distribution of planting materials to farmers in Nyaishozi.

PROPAGATION NURSERIES REQUIRE MORE THAN A HOUSE.

Different options exist also for these as will be indicated below in

the following diagrams:

COSTINGS:

Mr. John Simon and pastory Rugarabamu to send estimate of the

costs based on architectural designs that could be agreeable.

JOSEPH SEKIKU/FADECO/ ACTION IN AFRICA-NYAISHOZI