Young suckers of Musa var. “Yangambi” were collected from a healthy true to type mother plants. After removing the leaves and the roots, the suckers were thoroughly washed with tape water and liquid soap to remove ad- hering soil. The suckers were trimmed to size by remov- ing layers of the developing leaves. Then the suckers were rinsed with clean tape water and soaked in 1 g/l ascorbic acid for one hour before transfer to laminar flow. The shoot apices explants were sequentially treated with 70% alcohol for 30 seconds, then treated with 100% (v/v) hypochlorite (the active ingredient was 3.85% sodium hypochlorite) mixed with few drops of Tween 20 for one hour in order to sterilize the surface. This was then fol- lowed with treatment of 50% (v/v) hypochlorite of the same active ingredient for 30 minutes. The explants were further trimmed to remove the remaining hypochlorite and rinsed with sterile distilled water before initiation.