Originally Posted by PR-Giants

Banana and Plantain Breeding Program at the Honduran Foundation for Agricultural Research (FHIA), starting in 2002, pollinated 20,000 bunches, approximately 2 million fingers, of the Cavendish cultivars ‘Grand Naine’ and ‘Williams’ with pollen from 10 Cavendish cultivars for the development of Cavendish tetraploids. As a result, 200 seeds with 40 viable embryos were obtained, from which 20 tetraploid hybrids were developed.




Stover and Simmonds (1987) indicated that the sterility of the clones cultivated for the international trade is a consequence of the high inherent female sterility. Within the Cavendish group, seed production was not observed in the many thousands of pollinations conducted.

A second exception came in the 1990s when FHIA obtained one seed from the cross of ‘Williams’ as female parent and ‘SH-3142’ as male parent; this seed developed into a tetraploid plant that was named ‘FHIA-02’.