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Banana and Plantain are amongst the most important tropical fruit crops and are staple foods in most part of the tropics. However, it`s cultivation has largely remained small scale. A common limiting factor to large scale production and expansion of existing plantation is the difficulty in obtaining high quality planting materials. The objective of the study was to evaluate the effect of initiation media on in vivo macro propagation of Musa species. The study was conducted at Horticultural Unit of the Teaching and Research Farm of the Department of Crop science, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Benin, Benin City, Nigeria. The initiation media where; Sawdust (SD), Rice hull (RH), Shredded Plantain leaves (SPL), Sawdust + Rice hull (SD+RH), and Sawdust + Shredded Plantain leaves (SD+SPL), while two plantain cultivars (Hex Ukiwe and Benin Local) and one banana variety (BITA3) were used for the study. The experiment was a 5 × 3 factorial, laid out in a completely randomized design (CRD) with three replications. The results indicated that there was no significant differences among the initiation media and Musa cultivars. However, SD had the highest number of plantlets (7.78), while SPL, SD+SPL. SD+RH, and RH had 6.67, 5.89, 5.44 and 3.44 respectively. SD+RH (84.80) had the highest survival percentage and was followed by SD (78.40). The least survival percentage was observed in RH (52.80). Hex Ukiwe (7.33) had the highest number of plantlets and was followed by Benin local (6.93) and BITA3 (3.27). It implied that farmers or seed producers could use any of the initiation media that is relatively cheap and readily available for in vivo macro-propagation of Musa spp.
