Planting Media and Growth Regulators on Regeneration of Pineapple Seedlings from Crown Leaf Buds, Edition 1

Dr. Simon Muti Mbuvi
School of Agricultural Sciences and Agribusiness, Department of Crop Sciences, Pwani University, Kilifi, Kenya.
Dr. James Birya Ndiso
School of Agricultural Sciences and Agribusiness, Department of Crop Sciences, Pwani University, Kilifi, Kenya.
Dr. Elisha Otieno Gogo
School of Agricultural Sciences and Agribusiness, Department of Crop Sciences, Pwani University, Kilifi, Kenya.
Ms. Eunice Monthe John
School of Agricultural Sciences and Agribusiness, Department of Crop Sciences, Pwani University, Kilifi, Kenya.

Book Details

Author(s)

Dr. Simon Muti Mbuvi
Dr. James Birya Ndiso
Dr. Elisha Otieno Gogo
Ms. Eunice Monthe John

Pages

65

Publisher

BP International

Language

English

ISBN-13 (15)

978-93-48388-19-3 (Print)
978-93-48388-29-2 (eBook)

Published

December 10, 2024

About The Author / Editor

Dr. Elisha Otieno Gogo

School of Agricultural Sciences and Agribusiness, Department of Crop Sciences, Pwani University, Kilifi, Kenya.

Dr. James Birya Ndiso

School of Agricultural Sciences and Agribusiness, Department of Crop Sciences, Pwani University, Kilifi, Kenya.

Dr. Simon Muti Mbuvi

School of Agricultural Sciences and Agribusiness, Department of Crop Sciences, Pwani University, Kilifi, Kenya.

Ms. Eunice Monthe John

School of Agricultural Sciences and Agribusiness, Department of Crop Sciences, Pwani University, Kilifi, Kenya.

The works of this book are intended for the general audience, farmers, researchers, environmentalists, scholars, agricultural extension personnel and most importantly the youth, women and emerging entrepreneurs who can convert the demonstrated technology into a profitable venture. The writing of this book was inspired by the challenges faced by pineapple farming communities in ASAL areas of Kilifi County in the Coastal region of Kenya. The authors in the course of their careers happen to have worked both as lecturers, researchers and extension workers in diverse regions of Kenya. The interactions with farmers in the pineapple growing fields exposed a lot of shortcomings farmers have to overcome to ace a living. This created a vineyard for collaboration and initiation of farmer-initiated, farmer-managed and farmer-driven research. One of the most interesting findings in this collaboration was the fact that demand for organically produced pineapples encouraged farmers to sustain shift cultivation as a pineapple production system at the expense of the existing natural ecosystems. With the untapped potential of niche soils and vegetation for pineapple production standing at over 2,000ha in the Magarini Sub-County and 20,000ha in the whole of the Coastal region of Kenya, the pineapple value chain is considered a sleeping giant. With a seed rate requirement of 25,000 seedlings per hectare, the millions of seedlings needed to satisfy this demand is a big business. It is this reality that prompted the Pwani University Pineapple Research Team to find ways of empowering the local farmers with a self-service technology that assures faster and cheaper method of regenerating clean pineapple planting material from pineapple crown leaves, hitherto a waste hazard in most dump sites.  It is envisaged that adoption of this technology will revolutionise pineapple farming in Kenya.