Micro Propagating Banana, Pisang Berangan, Musa cv Berangan.

Micro propagating Banana Berangan, lazy man's version.

Was chatting with my helper to request him to transfer out those Berangan banana to replaced those unwanted cultivars, especially the Cavendish. I couldn't find market for the Cavendish as our buyers refuse to accept those. They call it Pisang Hijau, Green Banana. These Cavendish don't turn yellow  until way over ripe. Nobody want to buy, except a few who use it to make cakes. The last batch of 10 bunches which I send to our Free Range Chicken were left untouched cause I thin that the chicken may not know that it had ripe.

I was then told that there are a couple of Berangan that is bigger, both trees & fruits. We have 3 groups of it only and the sucklings are only a hand full. Other Berangan is smaller, trees & fruits but we have quite a number of these. I then remember we can do micro propagating. I read through there instruction and find it quite bothersome and plenty work especially the sterilizing part. I then came out with a short cut, lazy man's version.

Berangan.The tree next to the wheel barrow.

I requested my helper to identify the Berangan that he wanted. I then choose a medium plant of above 6 months ( I guess). 1 fine morning, after it rained the previous night (thank god), I started out to dig out the plant. It turned out to be quite a tough challenge even with wet soil. I can't imagine if the soil is dry and hard. It was hard work (for me). I had with me a machete, a crowbar, a cangkor and a wheelbarrow. It too me almost 2 hours to dig out the whole corm undamaged.

A heavy fellow. Berangan corm.

The corm was pretty heavy, unlike the big trunk which was light comparatively. I cut it down further hoping to reduce it's weight but it didn't help. Wheel it to our water tank to have the soil removed, clean and cut off the roots.

While cleaning, found another 3 suckers with corms. It's a small ones. I then core up the middle all the way to the corm. This is pretty easy as it is very soft. Once it reached the corm, it feels slightly harder. Had the corm divided into 8 section, without cutting through. For the smaller pieces, 4 sections.

 Dug up a hole and had it planted back to the same level.

The same were done for the smaller pieces. Covered back with soil and watered.

I then cover them up with some banana leafs. Let's leave them for 3 weeks.