Crossbreeding East African Highland Bananas: Lessons Learnt Relevant to the Botany of the Crop After 21 Years of Genetic Enhancement

Frontiers in Plant Science
Michael BatteR Ortiz

Abstract

East African highland bananas (EAHB) were regarded as sterile. Their screening for female fertility with "Calcutta 4" as male parent revealed that 37 EAHB were fertile. This was the foundation for the establishment of the EAHB crossbreeding programs by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and the National Agricultural Research Organization (NARO) in Uganda in the mid-1990s. The aim of this study was to assess the progress and efficiency of the EAHB breeding program at IITA, Sendusu in Uganda. Data on pollinations, seeds generated and germinated, plus hybrids selected between 1995 and 2015 were analyzed. Pollination success and seed germination percentages for different cross combinations were calculated. The month of pollination did not result in significantly different (P = 0.501) pollination success. Musa acuminata subsp. malaccensis accession 250 had the highest pollination success (66.8%), followed by the cultivar "Rose" (66.6%) among the diploid males. Twenty-five EAHB out of 41 studied for female fertility produced up to 305 seeds per pollinated bunch, and were therefore deemed fertile. The percentage of seed germination varied among crosses: 26% for 2x × 4x, 23% for 2x × 2x, 11% for 3x × 2x, and 7% ...Continue Reading

References

Oct 5, 2013·Biotechnology Advances·Rodomiro Ortiz, Rony Swennen
Sep 25, 2018·Annals of Botany·Xavier PerrierEdmond De Langhe
Jan 1, 2018·Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution·Michael BatteRodomiro Ortiz

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Citations

Sep 19, 2019·TAG. Theoretical and applied genetics. Theoretische und angewandte Genetik·Moses NyineRony Swennen
Jul 29, 2020·TAG. Theoretical and applied genetics. Theoretische und angewandte Genetik·M KitaviC Spillane
Oct 30, 2020·International Journal of Molecular Sciences·Denisa ŠimoníkováEva Hřibová
Oct 29, 2020·BMC Plant Biology·Michael BatteRodomiro Ortiz

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Methods Mentioned

BETA
flow cytometry

Software Mentioned

R

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