Drought Stress Tolerance and Enhancement of Banana Plantlets In Vitro

Environmental stresses severely restrict the developmental rates of plants; one prominent environmental stress is drought stress. Drought stress remains an ever-growing environmental problem that severely limits crop production worldwide and causes important agricultural losses particularly in arid and semiarid areas. Drought stress targets bananas which are one of the most important crops grown and consumed. Tissue culture is a novel technique that enabled the evaluation of tolerance to environmental stresses because it allowed their manipulation in vitro. The study investigated the adverse effects of drought stress on growth, yield and endogenous phytohormones of the banana (Musa acuminata); and focused on the progress towards the development of stresstolerant lines through tissue culturing based on in vitro selection. Drought stress was induced by applying Polyethylene Glycol (PEG) solutions with elevated strengths of (1, 2 & 3%). Tolerance effect was acquired by pre-treating the plantlets with trehalose using different concentrations (20, 60 & 100 mM), to test which concentration provides the most eminent outcome. Results exposed that trehalose has positive significant effects combating drought stress.