Assessment of Sterilants and their Combined Effect on Surface Sterilization of <i>Musa Spp</i>

Musa spp accessions were assembled from the Department of Crop Production & Landscape Management, Faculty of Agriculture, Ebonyi State University germplasm, and taken to the culture laboratory where they were washed and trimmed to a size of 1.0 – 1.5 cm. This block of tissue was surface-sterilized with different sterilants which included detergent, ethanol, NaOCl, benlate, HgCl2, UV light, and cefotaxime. The sterilants were applied following 15 different treatment protocols. Only 5 treatments protocols (T3: 70 % for 30 sec, 8 % NaOCL for 5 min, 500 mg/L cefotaxime; T4: 70 % for 30 sec, 8 % NaOCL for 5 min; T5: 70 % for 30 sec, 8 % NaOCL for 5 min, 1.2 g/L HgCl2 for 10 min, 500 mg/L cefotaxime; T6: 70 % for 30 sec, 8 % NaOCL for 5 min, 5 % benlate for 5 min, 1.2 g/L HgCl2 for 10 min, 500 mg/L cefotaxime, and T7: 70 % for 30 sec, 8 % NaOCL for 5 min, 5 % benlate for 5 min, 1.2 g/L HgCl2 for 10 min, U.V. light for 5 min, 500 mg/L cefotaxime) produced clean cultures with variations in the health of the cultures. T5 and T6 produced very healthy plantlets with 75 and 100 percent survival, respectively. T3 and T7 produced healthy plantlets with 100 percent survival, while T4 produced healthy plantlets with 50 % survival. Different sterilants react differently to living tissue, either alone or combined. Therefore, this work has produced standardized protocols for using the sterilants for surface sterilization of ‘owom’ and ‘efol’.