a tissue culture laboratory (Dooley, 1991). Compared with other techniques, for example, the periodic immersion bioreactor (10 L Nalgene vessels) for propagation in vitro, the cost price of
FCayenne_ pineapple propagules was decreased by 35% (Firoozabady and Gutterson, 2003). An earlier study showed that daylight instead of artificial light for banana propagation allowed savings on costs for electricity of US$6m2 week1, as compared to a standard growth room (controlled light intensity and temperature regimes) (Kodym et al., 2001).