Quote:
Originally Posted by Gabe15
I have lots of M. velutina seed I grew a few years ago, and I would be happy to send you some.
If your goal is to create a triploid M. velutina (2n x 4n cross), it's possible but the resulting plants will not make edible fruit as you also need parthenocarpy genes in the mix, and those come from edible cultivars.
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You are correct, I was thinking triploid was key, but parthenocarpy is a separate issue. I would think that once you have a tetraploid you could cross it to a diploid (like veinte cohol or pisang lilin) that produces seedless, parthenocarpic fruit. Or maybe with a tetraploid like FHIA-02. Converting to tetraploid may not be necessary, but might help. In Citrus, we use tetraploids as the mothers when making 3x hybrids, because you don't have to do embryo rescue, where you do with 2x x 4x crosses.
Richard Wallace of Armstrong Atlantic University described a new hybrid he made, which he called Musa x georgiana, which is M. balbisiana x M. velutina. (Article link and description here:
Musa georgiana, a new intersectional hybrid banana with edible banana breeding relevance and ornamental potential). This proves the cross possible.