Generation of new banana varieties by hybridization. Wild/ornamental X domestic.
 

Good morning, myname is Lautaro, and I'm from Argentina, in the province of Buenos Aires, La Plata.

Bananas have always been my favorite fruit, although the only imported variety I know is the Cavendish. Six years ago, I started a project to create new citrus varieties, and last year I began another phase: banana hybridization.

This isn't a very productive country because we have a subtropical climate, so occasional frosts would ruin the production. For this reason, I don't have many varieties to work with, since they aren't widely sold.

The varieties I have are: Musa acuminata zebrina, Musa ornata, Musa velutina, Musa coccinea, bluggoe, a possible Mysore, Cavendish of different varieties, red banana and another not yet identified.

As I studied and learned, I went from thinking that bananas didn't reproduce to learning the breeding strategies for creating a new seedless fruit.

From what I saw, there were two ways:

1. Obtain a sterile, parthenocarpic diploid (using pollen from cultivable varieties).

2. Obtain a polyploid from "sterile" triploids.

But I recently saw a study that used a tetraploid as a pollen donor with good results.

3. Obtain triploids and other parthenocarpic ploidies using tetraploids.

The case of this experience, using Fhia 21 AAAB, gave me hope of achieving my goal in "a single generation" :woohoonaner:

The results were: 97% parthenocarpic, with over 60% banana-like. 28 triploids, 15 tetraploids.

If you've had any experiences and results, I'd love to see them. I saw a chart about seed production in red bananas (possibly Red Dhaka). Has anyone tried this?

Re: Generation of new banana varieties by hybridization. Wild/ornamental X domestic.
 

Welcome to the Org

Can you post a link to FHIA-21 study.

Re: Generation of new banana varieties by hybridization. Wild/ornamental X domestic.
 

https://www.mdpi.com/2311-7524/10/1/62

Improving Crossing Efficiency by Exploiting the Genetic Potential of Allotetraploid Cooking Bananas

In case the link doesn't arrive, I'm leaving the title here to search for the article. It gave me a lot of peace of mind to see that results can be achieved this way. There are also other interesting methods that would be to use diploids such as Lidi (49% up to fertin pollen) or Pisang Mas (94% up to fertin pollen) as pollinators, since they present a good proportion of fertile pollen. This year I only had Musa ornata fruit that fattened and gave seeds with Bluggloe (DONKEY) pollen, but I didn't protect the flower and I don't know if the pollination was effective. We'll see what happens next. And now Bluggloe flowers are opening, maybe they will ripen before winter burns the fruit. I'm going to pollinate with Ornata, which is the only option available.

Re: Generation of new banana varieties by hybridization. Wild/ornamental X domestic.
 

Thanks for the link. I have plenty of FHIA-21 to experiment with.

Gabe mentioned using tetraploids to me several years ago and for whatever reason I assumed it was as the female parent and I haven't gotten to it yet. Now knowing the pollen is highly fertile I'll be using it a lot.

First experiment will be ARH x FHIA-21

I already know that the African Rhino Horn that I'm growing has residual female fertility.

Crossing a Horn with a French-type should be interesting.

Re: Generation of new banana varieties by hybridization. Wild/ornamental X domestic.
 

For two years I've been researching this breeding process, reading all the papers and talking with experienced people like Gabe (poor guy, we bothered him a lot, hahaha!). What I've learned is that the whole banana thing is completely unclear; there's no generalization, no absolutes. The use of tetraploids as receptors is the most common mention, but I don't know why they do it this way. This work serves to confirm that this method is efficient (tetraploid as pollen donor). In your project, keep in mind that the horned plantain is AAB and family 21 is AAAB, but it seems to have yielded diploid and triploid pollen, so you might end up with very unstable hybrids. I don't recall any papers that record the ploidy of African Rhino Horn offspring, but I did see one that gives some numbers. To generate Pita 3, they crossed a French strain with Calcutta pollen (AA) and obtained seeds: 23 (2x), 3 (3x), and 16 (4x), so it must have produced 23 (n), 3 (2n), and 16 (3n) ovules. If we add that to the ploidy of Phia 21 pollen: 28 (2n), 15 (3n), 19 (aneuploid).

It seems more likely to obtain 3n offspring, but you could also obtain 6n.