Development of Nursery Technology and Cultivation Techniques to Increase Production and Quality of Bali Local Bananas

            Bali has a high biodiversity of bananas, not less than 43 species. Bananas in Bali have multiple functions, aside from being a food ingredient, as well as for ritual materials, cultural and religious ceremonies, decorative materials, household industrial raw materials, medicinal materials, and others. With great use, the demand for bananas in Bali's local market is always high so Bali is very dependent on bananas from outside. High demand for bananas provides a great opportunity to cultivate bananas in Bali. However, the obstacle is that there are no seed traders who  sell local Bali banana seeds, so that farmers or the community find it difficult to get them. The long-term goal of this research is to find nursery technology to produce commercial seeds that can be used as start-ups for the banana seed industry at Udayana University, also to find out cultivation technology package  to increase the production and quality of local bananas in Bali. While the specific purpose of the research is to produce nursery technology from corms that can be easily applied by farmers and nursery technology with tissue culture techniques for mass production of local banana seedlingsi. To achieve these objectives, a two-year study was conducted. Year I conducted 2 sub-studies, i.e.  (1) propagation using chopped of corms and (2) propagation by tissue culture techniques. In year II, three sub-studies were conducted, i.e. (1) acclimatization of seedlings from tissue culture that was propagated from the best methods obtained from year I until they were ready to be planted in the field, (2) growth of seedlings originating from corms (which were propagated based on the best methods obtained from year I) by treating differences in spacing, fertilizing, and spacing of tillers, and (3) handling of pre-harvest and post-harvest fruits with "heart" removal treatment, fruit bunch wrapping, and fruit harvest time. Through 2 years of research, it is expected that an appropriate technology for the propagation of banana seedlings from the buds of tubers can be easily applied by farmers, resulting in simple Patent from mass propagation technology with tissue culture techniques that can be used for the development of the start-up of the banana seed industry at Udayana University, and banana cultivation technology is also produced to increase fruit production and quality according to market needs.