Evaluation of Most Appropriate Propagation Media for Regeneration of Pineapple Seedlings from Pineapple Crown Leaves

Pineapple cultivation is the main income generating activity in Magarini Sub-county and is grown under rain-fed conditions by small scale farmers. It significantly contributes to food security and sustenance of livelihoods in these marginal areas where rainfall reliability is a major challenge. It does well in specific soil niches found in certain natural vegetation that covers over 20,000Ha of which only less than 5% has been exploited. The land in these soil niches cannot sustainably support other annual crops except cassava due to limited rainfall and poor soils. It therefore became necessary to expand pineapple cultivation to fully utilize this enormous land potential. However, the main limiting factor was inadequate availability of clean pineapple planting material. Use of tissue culture for mass production of planting material was hindered by huge capital outlay for establishing a tissue culture laboratory. This necessitated introduction of technology on rapid mass regeneration of planting material from crown leaves which are plenty and a waste hazard. It therefore became necessary to find out the most appropriate locally available propagation media for raising seedlings from crown leaves at the comfort of farmers in their homes. A randomized complete block design experiment with four replications was set up among four pineapple growing farmer groups where each group was a replication. Each group tested four types of propagation media, namely Coir dust (as the standard propagation media), Soso and Sokoke soils (as the locally available soil media) and a mixture of Chitosan and coir dust, (being tested for its high nutrient content). Each media was contained in plastic propagation trays that constituted the experimental plots. The farmers cut and hived off at least two leaves with a bud from crowns earlier selected from healthy fruits in the market and farms. These leaves were treated with pesticides and fungicides against pests and disease pathogens then dipped in a solution of Auxin rooting hormone at 33% concentration, then planted in the respective test media in the plastic containers. The results, as evaluated by the participating farmers showed that Coir dust and Soso soil had the highest success rates of germination and emergence of pineapple seedlings, of between 50% to 75%, followed by Sokoke soil which resulted in success rates of between 14% to 60%, while Chitosan had the least at between 4% and 35%. However, farmers discounted Coir dust on account of its high cost and availability, settling on Soso soil as their best choice of propagation media for raising pineapple seedlings.