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Originally Posted by SoCal2warm
Isn't it true that all eating quality banana varieties are triploid cultivars?
That would seem to imply triploidy has something to do with seedlessness...
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Definitely far from the truth. There are innumerable edible diploids, and in fact they are arguably the most diverse class of edible bananas.
Quote:
Originally Posted by druss
No, there are plenty of good eating quality bananas of diploids, i.e nine enano, inarnibal, terema, sucrier etc plus plenty of good tetraploids such as the fhia lines like goldfinger, plus other synthetics like calypso. Its true wild tetraploids are rare but they are around, from memory Gabe identified one on bouganville.
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We found two in Bougainville, but there are definitely a few others out there as well. And yes of course, many many synthetic tetraploids exist from breeding programs.
Quote:
Originally Posted by druss
Gabe, do you have a preference for method of hand pollination?
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I have mesh bags I put around the male buds to prevent pollen contamination. I collect newly opened male flowers from the bagged buds early in the morning, usually around 6-7AM, then immediately use them to pollinate female flowers on other plants. If they are small female buds, you can also bag them to prevent insect or bird pollination, or you can pollinate the hands that are a day or two out from opening by gently lifting the bract, manually opening the female flowers to expose the stigma better, pollinating, and then closing the bract back over it, it kinda acts like a natural bag well enough.
If I'm working with highly fertile males with lots of pollen, its easy to basically use them like little paintbrushes on the stigmas. If there is not very much pollen, I sometimes slide the male flower over the stigma so that the anthers come in direct contact with the stigma along their entire length, thus getting more pollen.
In some male parents with very little or no visible pollen, you can sometimes still get some by gently scraping the anthers with a toothpick to manually open them and get a little bit of pollen on the toothpick which I then use to transfer to the stigmas of the female flowers.