In early nineties, 60% of banana field’s area of Pakistan (Sindh) was under high attack of Banana Bunchy Top Virus (BBTV) which caused banana bunchy top virus disease and results in 90% decrease in its production. Mostly the plants having bunchy tops were infected by this virus due to their less flexible leaves and having rigidity in the leaves. As a consequence heavy loss in production by BBTV, farmers moved towards the cultivation of other crops like cotton and sugarcane but this choice was also not profitable as compared to banana. So to get rid of this virus, efforts were made by planting disease free plants.
One perspective was to import healthy germplasm from other countries, but imported germplasm could not grow under local environment due to high alkaline nature of soil. The second approach was to fulfil the requirement of farmers by cleaning the existing germplasm and multiply them at higher rates. The micro propagation of banana plantlets is an excellent alternate approach adopted in many countries of the world like Israel, France, Australia and Cuba. Shoot tip and male floral apices can play a vital role for micro propagation of banana. According to Novak et al.regeneration and somatic embryogenesis can take place in liquid medium. The rate of multiplication is the important factor that affects the efficiency of micro propagation system.
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