Entophytic Bacillus: The Potentiality of Antagonism to Wilt Pathogen and Promoting Growth to Micro-Plantlet of Banana in Vitro

Using healthy seedling produced by tissue culture is one of the recommended control strategies of banana wilt diseases caused by blood disease bacterium (BDB) and Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. cubense(FOC) in Indonesia. The tissue culture technique however may cause the seedling to be susceptible to the diseases due to the aseptic work throughout producing, being able to eliminate the beneficial endophytic bacteria. Therefore it is hopeful that revitalizing the beneficial bacteria on the seedling will be able to recover the resistance of banana. Herewith, an amount of 10 isolates of endophytic Bacillus had been studied on the antagonism to the wilt pathogens and the ability to promote growth of banana micro-plantlet in vitro. The present study showed that (1) Bacillus isolate B04, B05, and B10 were antagonistic to BDB and FOC, (2) Bacillus isolate B04, B05, and B10 could release extracellular compound being able to promote the growth of banana micro-plantlets, and (3) Bacillus filtrate treatment of banana micro-plantlet was better than those infestation treatment into culture medium in promoting the growth of the micro-plantlet.