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Grand Naine (G9) Cavendish banana — Jain tissue culture Photo: placeholder pending image-fill pass

Grand Naine (G9) Cavendish banana — Jain tissue culture

Grand Naine, internationally designated "G9", is a semi-dwarf Cavendish (AAA genome group) banana selection that has become the dominant commercial dessert banana of India. The variety reached Indian growers in the 1990s through Jain Irrigation Systems' tissue-culture laboratory at Jalgaon, Maharashtra, in collaboration with Israeli partners, and its rapid uptake transformed banana cultivation from a sucker-based smallholder crop into an organised, drip-fertigated plantation industry. ICAR-NRCB Trichy maintains agronomic packages for the variety; NHB statistics place G9 as the backbone of more than 70% of India's commercial banana area.

Key characteristics

  • Genome group: AAA, Cavendish subgroup, Grand Naine selection
  • Plant height: 6.5-7.5 ft (semi-dwarf, wind-tolerant)
  • Crop cycle: 11-12 months from planting to harvest of the plant crop; one or two ratoons commonly retained
  • Bunch weight: 25-35 kg average, up to 50-55 kg under intensive drip-fertigation
  • Yield: 60-75 t/ha per cycle; 30-35 t/acre in well-managed Maharashtra and Gujarat blocks
  • Fruit: long, well-curved fingers, uniform ripening, good shelf life suited to long-distance freight

Cultivation

Tissue-culture plantlets are hardened in shade-net nurseries for 45-60 days before being planted into pits enriched with farmyard manure and rock phosphate. Standard spacing is 6 ft x 6 ft (around 1,200 plants/acre); paired-row and high-density layouts at 5.5 ft x 5.5 ft are used in tank-fed delta regions. Drip-fertigation supplies 200-300 g N, 60-90 g P and 300-400 g K per plant per cycle, split over 6-8 fortnightly doses. Propping with bamboo or casuarina poles at bunch emergence is essential because the pseudostem is shallow-rooted and bunches are heavy (Banana Staking Bamboo). Pseudostem and leaf residue is recycled in-field to return potassium (Banana Residue Mulching).

Pest and disease profile

G9 is susceptible to yellow and black Sigatoka leaf spots (Banana Sigatoka Yellow Mycosphaerella), banana bunchy top virus (Banana Bunchy Top Virus) and corm weevil (Banana Corm Weevil Cosmopolites). It shows moderate field tolerance to Fusarium wilt Race 1 but is highly vulnerable to Tropical Race 4 (Banana Fusarium Wilt Foc Tr4) where the pathogen has been reported. Use of certified indexed tissue-culture material is the principal preventive measure for viral diseases.

Adoption and use

G9 dominates organised banana cultivation in Maharashtra (Jalgaon, Solapur), Gujarat (Bharuch, Anand), Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, and is the principal Indian export Cavendish to West Asia. Most growers harvest a plant crop plus one ratoon before re-planting tissue-cultured suckers.

See also: Banana Bunchy Top Virus, Banana Fusarium Wilt Foc Tr4, Banana Sigatoka Yellow Mycosphaerella, Banana Corm Weevil Cosmopolites, Banana G9 Tissue Culture.

References

  1. Grand Naine cultivation — Package of Practices. ICAR-National Research Centre for Banana, Trichy.
  2. Area and production statistics for banana 2023. National Horticulture Board.