Growth Evaluation of Banana cv. Barangan as the Effect of Trichoderma sp. and Covering Types during Acclimatization Process

Abstract

Acclimatization is one of the important processes in banana micro propagation before plantlets/planting materials are ready to be cultivated in the field. Trichoderma sp. are well known as plant promoter fungi that can promote plant growth and increase survival rate of plantlets. The study was arranged in a Completely Randomized Factorial Design with two factors and four replications. The first factors was covering type i.e. 1) individual covering and 2) mass covering. The second factor was the proportion of Trichoderma addition into manure, namely A) manure without the addition of Trichoderma sp. (control), B) Trichoderma sp. : manure = 1 : 400 (w/w), C) Trichoderma sp. : manure = 1 : 800 (w/w) and D) Trichoderma sp. : manure = 1 : 1,200 (w/w). The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of Trichoderma sp. applications and covering types in the growth of banana plantlets cv. Barangan during the acclimatization process. The results showed that the best treatment to induce plantlet growth during the acclimatization process was the addition of Trichoderma sp.: manure with 1 : 400 (w/w) proportion and individual covering. The combination of Trichoderma sp. : manure with 1 : 400 (w/w) proportion and individual covering produced plant height and leaf length 8.5 cm and 4.4 cm, respectively, compared to the treatment without Trichoderma sp. addition that produced plantlets with 6.6 cm height and 3.4 cm leaf length. No significant interaction was shown between Trichoderma sp. proportions and covering types on leaf width, the number of leaves and root length parameters.

Keywords

• acclimatization
• banana
• plant growth promoting fungi
• trichoderma sp.