Yes, your house can be a banana lab

Joyce Macharia at the GrowTech Nurseries. PHOTO | NATION 

In Summary

• Three friends have turned a rental house into a tissue culture banana lab where they are producing over 10,000 plants each month.
• The sitting room is used as the reception and office. Temperatures in the rooms are maintained at between 26-29 degrees Celsius as the plants are fragile and sensitive to too low or too high temperatures.
• Winning customers trust, however, according to her is not an easy task as most of them prefer large-scale breeders.

By RACHEL KIBUI
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Ngata estate in Nakuru, off the main highway to Eldoret, is serene, making the residents an envy of many in search of tranquil neighbourhoods.

The houses, mostly bungalows, stand in fenced compounds, with strong metallic gates to keep at bay unwanted visitors.

It is on a Saturday when I venture into this middle-income estate in search of a group of scientists.

The directions I had been offered lead me to a blue gate. Inside the compound are two semi-detached three-bedroom houses separated by a chain-link fence.

From the bungalow on the left, a man comes out, locks his door, and greets his brown dog before leaving.

His neighbours – the scientists, with whom he shares a wall, are a different kind of tenants.

Duncan Mwangi answers my call at the door. He is dressed in a white overcoat, and as he opens it, I get a glimpse of what is inside the house.

He hands me a pair of sandals as no shoes are allowed into the house that has been turned into a tissue-culture banana grafting laboratory.  I also put on a disinfected white overcoat and a nose mask.

Mwangi is the laboratory manager at the facility dubbed China Kenya Hort Technology Centre Ltd, which was started three years ago by three friends.

The three friends, a professor and two agronomists, who work for flower firms, jointly invested Sh2 million in the venture after seeing a lucrative business opportunity.

Most of the money went into installing tissue-culture banana seedlings production systems that churn out over 10,000 plants every month. Each of the three bedrooms is used for different purposes in the production process. In one of the rooms, there are four employees – three ladies, and a man – silently at work.

LAB PRODUCTION

Duncan Mwangi in a growers room. PHOTO | NATION

“They are separating banana shoots, which will then be planted individually to multiply further,” explains Mwangi, an employee.

The four work in groups of two to separate the shoots using what the agronomist calls clean benches.

“They have to remain silent as some bacteria from their mouths may contaminate the young and fragile plants,” explains Mwangi

The shoots are planted in a mixture of nutrients that include calcium, potassium and phosphorous and hormones that aid in multiplication, all mixed in a special gel.

The multiplication takes four weeks before shoots are separated and multiplied further in another room in a process that takes four weeks. One original shoot, known as meristem, Mwangi explains, can produce 1,000 plants.

From the shoots’ production and multiplication units, we move to the ‘growers’ room. Here, hormones are further used to aid in roots production.

“Plants remain in this room for  four weeks. Each shoot is planted in its own sterilised bottle in the special soil and essential nutrients,” explains Mwangi of the happenings in the house, for which they pay rent of Sh15,000 a month.

The sitting room is used as the reception and office. Temperatures in the rooms are maintained at between 26-29 degrees Celsius as the plants are fragile and sensitive to too low or too high temperatures.

The kitchen is used for sterilising equipment. All equipment such as bottles and spatulas are thoroughly washed. They are then put in a special sterilising gadget known as an autoclauve.

The laboratory is certified by both the Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Services and Horticultural Crops Development Authority.

They also have a business permit from the county government. “All the components used, the nutrients, hormones and minerals are degradable, thus, there is no pollution in the neighbourhood. We further maintain high standards of hygiene,” Mwangi says.

COMPETITIVE VARIETIES

After the tour of the house, we cross the highway to the opposite side of Ngata estate. We meet Joyce Macharia, the managing director of Grow Tech Nurseries, which she has set up in her compound. The home hosts a greenhouse where the grafted seedlings from China Kenya Hort Technology Centre are grown.

The company is the marketing agent for the tissue banana seedlings produced by the lab.

“As a lab, we cannot do all the work. It is better to specialise in the lab production and leave the marketing to a different outfit,” says Mwangi.

Shoots from the lab are first planted in trays, filled with coconut husks in place of soil and manure.  “Unlike soil, coconut husks have minimal contamination from pathogens, which is why we prefer them when the shoots are still adopting to the outside environment,” explains Joyce

The shoots remain in the trays for a month, before being transplanted into polythene bags filled with a mixture of soil and manure inside a greenhouse.

They take about five weeks in the bags before they are sold to farmers. According to Joyce, they sell about 10,000 seedlings every month at over Sh100 each. Sales are lower during dry seasons and higher in wet seasons.

Their major markets are NGOs, individual farmers mostly in Central, Kisii and Nyanza areas.

They market their produce at the Agricultural Society of Kenya (ASK) shows in various regions across the country and by word of mouth.

Winning customers trust, however, according to her is not an easy task as most of them prefer large-scale breeders.

“We equally produce purely competitive varieties such as Ngombe Giant, Ngombe Dwarf, Williams, Uganda Green and the world renown Chikita,” says Joyce

After buying seedlings, a farmer gets free advice on issues such as how to plant, water and take care of the crop.

PEST RESISTANT

Mwangi says plans are underway to open more outlets, especially in Nairobi. Already, Grow Tech has an outlet in Kisii and seeks to take more plants closer to the farmers.

Prof Paul Kimurto, a crop scientist at Egerton University, says there are several chemical wastes used in the tissue banana laboratories, thus, it calls for high standards of safety.

“Such wastes should always be disposed in a dumpsite certified by the National Environmental Management Authority. Otherwise, the waste can be disposed in septic tanks, which are mostly used in urban areas,” he says, noting one can set a lab anywhere.

Unlike the traditional bananas, tissue culture bananas are more resistant to pests and diseases. They also have a uniform growth of all plants, meaning that the farmer can harvest his crop at the same time, according to Prof Kimurto.

They mature early at between 12-14 months depending on factors such as temperature and humidity, unlike traditional bananas that take up to two years.

Tissue culture bananas have better yields and can weigh up to 120kg depending on the variety and climatic conditions.