Nothing is left to chance in the banana farm of multi-awarded farmer Samuel Cortez of Cauayan in Isabela Province. His most effective banana farming practice --- the use of plantlets nurtured in a test tube.

Cortez is one of 20 farmers in Cauayan City, who are ‘cautiously’ bringing back banana production to their farms. In 2003, infestation by the banana bunchy top virus (BBTV) forced them to eradicate all their banana plants. This experience was more than traumatic for farmers like them who had high hopes of raking in considerable income from a new commodity.

The Philippines was the world’s fourth top banana producer in 2006 and ranks second biggest exporter with 2.3 million t valued at US $404 million in 2006. Of the total area around the world, which is planted to banana, 9.38% is found in the Philippines.

In the Cagayan Valley Region, however, the BBTV disease is common, more so in Isabela, especially in Cauayan City. In 2004, the Department of Agrarian Reform-Provincial Agrarian Reform Office of Isabela, Cagayan Valley Agriculture and Resources Research and Development Consortium, and Isabela State University started rehabilitating banana farms mainly through disease-free, tissue-cultured planting materials.

Cortez and other farmers in Isabela were apprehensive at first in using tissue-cultured plantlets because they were small and difficult to raise. Like other farmers in the province, Cortez was more familiar with rice. He was even awarded by the Department of Agriculture as the most outstanding rice farmer in the country for three consecutive years from 2000 to 2002.

Management Practices
Apart from the tissue-cultured planting materials, Cortez follows the packaging technology in Lakatan production most appropriate in his area. He uses water from shallow tubes for irrigation. Because tissue-cultured Lakatan does not thrive well in too 3,500 Lakatan plants. Most of them are now bearing fruits. Farmers from around Isabela and neighboring provinces in the region like Nueva Vizcaya and Quirino, and even farmers from Benguet, started visiting the farm of Cortez. The farm has given him and the other banana farmers new hope.

With the success of his initial banana farm establishment through tissue-cultured Lakatan, a modest nursery for tissue-cultured banana is being planned. Cortez is satisfied that he gets income from the fruits, as well as from selling suckers to farmers who have been encouraged to plant bananas again. Because of the disease-free and tissue-cultured Lakatan, as much as 85% of the BBTV disease has been eradicated in Cauayan, San Mateo, and Alicia towns.