Abstract:

This illustrated guide summarizes the key practices for producing clean planting material of
banana with a high yield potential for smallholders, depending on the pests and diseases which
are present.
The guide is also designed to contribute to better planning of the propagation of planting
material for rural development and disaster relief projects. A simpler version of this manual is
available as grower fact sheets well-illustrated with photographs. The legends and explanations
for the appropriate methods can be translated into local languages.
Dessert bananas, plantains and cooking bananas1
are an important smallholder crop in the
tropics and subtropics, providing food security, dietary diversity and income to millions of
rural households. Every year rural households plant or replant fields of bananas, using more
than 20-30 billion suckers or some other form of vegetative planting material.
A simplified version of this manual is available for producers in the form of well illustrated
field sheets with photographs. Descriptions and explanations of the different methods may be
translatedin local languages or dialects if necessary