Journal of Scientific Research and Reports

Banana (Musa paradisiaca L.) is an economically and nutritionally important tropical fruit crop that provides livelihood security to millions of farmers in India. The present study compared the economic efficiency and input utilization of tissue culture and conventional banana cultivation systems in Anjangaon Surji and Achalpur tehsils of Amravati district, Maharashtra, during 2022–23. A total of 120 farmers (60 Tissue Culture and 60 conventional) were selected through multistage purposive random sampling, and data were analyzed using regression and decomposition techniques to assess productivity and efficiency differences. The findings of the study clearly demonstrated that tissue culture (TC) banana cultivation outperformed conventional methods in terms of production efficiency and resource utilization. TC farms were found to be more input-efficient, requiring only 248.85 labour days per hectare compared to 342.16 labour days in conventional farms. This substantial reduction in labour input can be attributed to the uniformity of tissue-cultured plants, which facilitates synchronized field operations such as irrigation, fertilizer application, and harvesting. Uniform crop growth minimizes repeated field interventions and results in a more organized and efficient production process. In terms of nutrient management, TC farms used significantly lower quantities of fertilizer (685.00 kg/ha) compared to conventional cultivation (1,117.08 kg/ha). This reduction reflects improved nutrient-use efficiency, as tissue-cultured plants are genetically uniform, disease-free, and physiologically more vigorous, leading to better nutrient absorption and reduced input wastage. Similarly, the slightly lower manure application (22.11 tonnes/ha vs. 25.68 tonnes/ha) indicates that TC plants utilized organic nutrients more effectively, likely due to enhanced root development and soil–plant interactions (Brito et al., 2017). Despite the higher cost of planting material (Rs. 4,443.33/ha) for TC bananas compared to conventional suckers (Rs. 1,777.33/ha), the total cost of cultivation was lower in TC farms (Rs. 208,201.95/ha) than in conventional ones (Rs. 239,742.32/ha). This demonstrates that the higher initial investment in quality plantlets was compensated by savings from reduced pest and disease management costs, lesser replanting needs, and better yield uniformity. The regression analysis (R² = 0.9441) indicated a stronger and more efficient relationship between inputs and output in TC farms than in conventional systems (R² = 0.7991), signifying that each unit of input was utilized more productively. Furthermore, the planting material coefficient (0.97953) emerged as the most significant positive determinant of yield, emphasizing the crucial role of genetic quality in enhancing productivity. Decomposition analysis (coefficient = 0.830) further confirmed that the genetic uniformity, vigour, and disease-free status of tissue-cultured plants were the major contributors to yield variation and overall performance. Overall, tissue culture banana farming proved to be scientifically efficient, economically profitable, and environmentally sustainable, highlighting the need for wider dissemination through farmer awareness, institutional support, and improved access to quality tissue culture plantlets.