Environmental stresses severely restrict the developmental rates of plants;
one prominent environmental stress is drought stress. Drought stress remains
an ever-growing environmental problem that severely limits crop production
worldwide and causes important agricultural losses particularly in arid and semiarid
areas. Drought stress targets bananas which are one of the most important
crops grown and consumed. Tissue culture is a novel technique that enabled
the evaluation of tolerance to environmental stresses because it allowed their
manipulation in vitro. The study investigated the adverse effects of drought
stress on growth, yield and endogenous phytohormones of the banana (Musa
acuminata); and focused on the progress towards the development of stresstolerant
lines through tissue culturing based on in vitro selection. Drought stress
was induced by applying Polyethylene Glycol (PEG) solutions with elevated
strengths of (1, 2 & 3%). Tolerance effect was acquired by pre-treating the
plantlets with trehalose using different concentrations (20, 60 & 100 mM), to test
which concentration provides the most eminent outcome. Results exposed that
trehalose has positive significant effects combating drought stress.