ISHS Acta Horticulturae 540: I International Conference on Banana and Plantain for Africa
A TRIPLOID PARENTAL LINE FOR BREEDING DISEASE-RESISTANT COOKING BANANAS FOR EAST AFRICA |
| Authors: | P. Rowe, F. Rosales |
| Abstract:
The approach to genetic improvement of the different types of bananas and plantains is to use seed-fertile triploids with the desired fruit qualities as the fixed female parental lines in cross-pollinations with disease-resistant diploids. The resultant tetraploid hybrids are then evaluated for both their agronomic and disease resistance traits as compared to those of the triploid traditional varieties for which they are potential replacements. Seed-fertile triploids have been identified among existing natural clones for these 3x x 2x crosses in breeding for improvement of export bananas, sweet-acid bananas, plantains, and ABB cooking bananas. However, even though several East African AAA cooking bananas produce seeds when pollinated, the hybrids obtained to date have had inferior plant and bunch features. It now appears that the dwarf SH-3386 bred triploid, which has Gaddatu (ABB) in its pedigree, is an exceptional female parental line in breeding new productive, disease-resistant hybrids for East Africa. Preliminary results and future expectations from using SH-3386 in breeding improved hybrids with fruit qualities similar to those of the East African AAA cooking bananas are discussed. | |
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