Contest: Tell us about best science project that you have ever done: Tissue Manipulation Technology.

Science is a way of obtaining knowledge through careful observation and experimentation. Everything in the world is about science. I have been part of science since I was a child. The making of lorries from cans and other stuffs. Getting small blubs from touch lights to lighten up our small’s rooms employing principles of electricity. For today’s contest I will not go into my childhood days. I will go back to senior high school.

In senior high school, I was a science student who was active in its activities too. I was fortunate to be chosen for a science project. It was a privilege and I really made good use of it. The project was about Tissue manipulation Technology.

One may ask what that is. Tissue manipulation culture is like cloning. As we all know, there is an existing something that we will increase it in number using that one thing. Tissue manipulation technology was carried on by other colleagues and me. We used the plantain sucker to get more plantain suckers

In the plantain sucker, the apical meristems dominate over other buds. It gets the opportunity to sprout giving us the plantain plant. But do we equally know, if opportunity is given to the numerous lateral meristems, it can also give us a plantain plant? That’s what tissue manipulation culture is all about.

In this technology, we expose the lateral and the apical meristems. We take our time to cut each lateral leaf out to expose them well. After that, we then use a sharp knife to destroy the apical meristem. When the apical meristem is destroyed, the lateral buds then get the chance to sprout. So, the number of lateral buds in a plantain sucker will determine the number of plantain suckers you will get at the end of the process.

After all this, you then look for a saw dust or any place you are choosing to plant it. The place should be suitable for gemination. Also, one must consider the uprooting of the suckers since we will be transplanting them into the school garden. Meaning we require a soil or a saw dust spot we can easily uproot the suckers without it destroying.

We did this, submerged it in a saw dust. We irrigated it for about 3 weeks till the suckers started showing. We had 6 plantain suckers from one, and it was really amazing. We transplanted them into the school garden, and we replaced the sucker we took with extract 5 plantain suckers. Isn’t it an amazing project?

This link leads to a gif of me explaining the concept

That was the science project I took part in and I’m really glad I did. This method can be used by all farmer. It's economical and also an effective technology for planting both plantain and bananas.

Thank you for going through. I hope you will use this technology in your farming one day!