View Full Version : Does anyone have experience with acuminata X laterita hybrids?
shannondicorse
07-30-2013, 05:48 PM
Hello All,
Does anyone have experience with acuminata X laterita hybrids and their progeny?
Specifically, do the F1s and subsequent generations have the underground runner habit that makes laterita so invasive and invulnerable to heavy clays?
Shepherd says that to the best of his memory, the hybrids lack that typical laterita propensity. In contradistinction, Sathiamoorthy says that the hybrids of laterita with M. acuminata ssp. burmannica have the characteristic rhizomatous spreading habit of laterita.
BACKGROUND: On Trinidad & coastal Guyana, much of the arable lands are composed of very heavy Recent alluvial clays with poor internal drainage. Such lands make rather poor banana fields. Feral laterita outcrops on Trinidad thrive on such soils; even invading small marshy plots and crossing rivulets.
This propensity is an agronomic plus that is absent from all the species bananas available to me locally. Additionally, it seems that laterita shares the acuminata genome to a much greater extent than the other Rhodochlamys bananas.
I see this as a breeding opportunity; and I've already collected and germinated putative acuminata ssp. malaccensis X laterita seed from my open pollinated plants.
Thanks,
shannon
shannon.di.corse@gmail.com
Bananaman88
08-02-2013, 03:14 PM
I have grown M. laterita for over 10 years and always keep it potted due to its propensity to spread all over the place. I do not have any experience witht hybrids between it and M. acuminata, however. So, you are stating that you want to retain the spreading tendency?
Hello All,
Does anyone have experience with acuminata X laterita hybrids and their progeny?
Specifically, do the F1s and subsequent generations have the underground runner habit that makes laterita so invasive and invulnerable to heavy clays?
Shepherd says that to the best of his memory, the hybrids lack that typical laterita propensity. In contradistinction, Sathiamoorthy says that the hybrids of laterita with M. acuminata ssp. burmannica have the characteristic rhizomatous spreading habit of laterita.
BACKGROUND: On Trinidad & coastal Guyana, much of the arable lands are composed of very heavy Recent alluvial clays with poor internal drainage. Such lands make rather poor banana fields. Feral laterita outcrops on Trinidad thrive on such soils; even invading small marshy plots and crossing rivulets.
This propensity is an agronomic plus that is absent from all the species bananas available to me locally. Additionally, it seems that laterita shares the acuminata genome to a much greater extent than the other Rhodochlamys bananas.
I see this as a breeding opportunity; and I've already collected and germinated putative acuminata ssp. malaccensis X laterita seed from my open pollinated plants.
Thanks,
shannon
shannon.di.corse@gmail.com
shannondicorse
08-02-2013, 05:30 PM
So, you are stating that you want to retain the spreading tendency?
Bananaman88,
Yes, Sir! Exactly!
This running tendency of laterita is related to several things; including tolerance of heavy clays with impeded internal drainage.
Hence my deep interest in producing, out of the F1s, extremely fertile acuminata-like segregates and backcrosses to acuminata that have the desired laterita characteristics.
EXPANSION: Remember, the banana breeding I am embarking on is really about survival in many dirt-poor peasant communities in the neotropics.
People who are threatened with food insecurity and non-performing cash crops tend to end up in the clutches of desperation. They are ripe for socio-political upheaval or falling into the employ of firms that pillage the environment.
The traditional focus of banana breeders was the supply of material to replace the current variety in the environmental, economic and political nightmare of ultra-large scale monoclonal banana culture for export.
I assert that this worldview has fundamentally warped the breeding paradigm and process. It has also fundamentally changed banana pathogen evolution.
The 3n (cultivar) X 2n (wild seeded form) is a grossly failed paradigm.
One much better way is to employ a wide-scope 2n X 3x initial series of crosses; then employ indefinitely multiple cycles of intercrossing (...with occasional crosses to "new" parent material as it comes to hand...) the diploids - selecting for desirable agronomic and market characteristics thereof at the diploid level.
Cultivars for release can be diploid or triploid.
I think people like Frédéric Bakry of CIRAD on Guadeloupe understand this well. However, I discern that the business of banana breeding might be just that - a business.
Hence the myths of the huge acreages, expensive labs, heavily trained staff etc. You need those vast acreages precisely because you're doing it the hardest way!! But difficult projects attract $$$ by the barrowsful.
The folks who insist that the modern developments in banana genomics will "save" the crop are not necessarily correct, I think. At least not in the short & medium terms.
Accomplished breeders like Phil Rowe of FHIA seem to understand this.
And unless we create large genetically diverse populations of diploid acuminata and homoeologously recombinant balbisiana; we are dead in the water. I reckon that the world needs to generate about 20 new banana cultivars a year; and to do this it must incorporate matings among hundreds of genetically disparate synthetic diploids.
The current banana cultivation paradigm is a cauldron for disease evolution. You can't do linear breeding and hope to outrun bacteria, fungi or viruses.
I know that there are scientists lurking on this list. They know I'm talking sense. But who's going to bell the cat? Eh? Tell me that.
sincerely,
shannon
shannon.di.corse@gmail.com
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