Cheaper Water Sources for Micropropagation of Banana (musa Acuminata) Cv. 'GRANDE NAINE'

Water source in plant tissue culture production laboratories is from distillation units. The costs of these units are a high and regular maintenance is also economically taxing. Hence, to reduce the cost of production of tissue cultured banana, in vitro multiplication and ischolar_maining was carried out on a medium prepared with different sources of water viz., millipore filter water, aquaguard filter water, double distilled water, single distilled water and autoclaved potable tap water. Cultures grown on MS medium prepared with aquaguard filter water recorded maximum mean number of shoots/culture (12.50), highest mean shoot length (2.77 cm) and maximum mean number of adventitious buds/culture (8.25) followed by millipore filter water and autoclaved potable tap water. Microshoots cultured on MS medium prepared with aquaguard filter water recorded highest ischolar_maining percentage (100 %), maximum number of primary ischolar_mains/ shoots (9.50) and highest ischolar_main length (7.00 cm) followed by millipore filter water. Cheaper source of water such as aquaguard filter or even autoclaved potable tap water can be used as low cost alternative water source for successful micropropagation of banana 'Grande Naine'.