Worldwide on bananas control of the burrowing nematode, Radopholus similis, is mainly based on nematicide applications. During the past decade in the French West Indies, alternative methods have been developed and based on i) the destruction of the infected plantations, ii) the sanitation of soils by fallow and iii) the re-plantation with nematode-free micropropagated plants. The limit of this cropping system is in the quality of the fallow. In the past, the former banana plantations were destroyed mechanically with a rom-plow or a tractor-drawn rotary spade. These machines cut into pieces the banana rhizomes which may afterwards develop ratoons and infested roots. After banana destruction, the developping flora comprised mainly the weed familles Poaceae, Euphorbiaceae, Capparidaceae and Solanaceae which are known as potential reservoirs for R. similis. In order to improve and speed up the destruction of infested banana plants, we evaluated a chemical method of banana destruction using a stem injection of a 90 g/l solution of glyfosate. At harvest, nine months after re-plantation with nematode-free micropropagated plants, the previous chemical destruction treatment reduced drastically and significantly the rate of afterwards R. similis infested plants (from 12.2% on no-tillage destruction te, 29.3% when followed by a tractor-drawn rotary spade tillage) compared to the 76% of infested plants on the tilled plots. This method allow a reduction of R. similis population on banana roots of 93.5% (compared with standard mechanical destruction) and yields were increased of 14% during the first year of production without application of any nematicide.