Bananas.org - View Single Post - Best cultivars for cold hardy cross pollination

Gabe15 · 10-10-2007, 04:13 AM

Banana breeding is a very complicated process and to create seedless, edible bananas is not as easy as just doing a few basic cross pollinations. It takes years to do all of the breeding and selection before a desirable plant is created.

'Helens Hybrid' is really unknown in terms of genetics, its still a hobbyists variety and there is no DNA work done on it that I know of. It is reported as being a M. sikkimensis/M. 'Chini Champa' hybrid (SS+AB, which has the potential to result in anything from diploid to heptaploid, but since bananas loose vigor beyond tetraploid, it has to be either 2X, 3X or 4X), and if they truly are harvesting all of this true to type seed, you could only assume that it is both fertile (male and female) and self compatible. However, this would be really unusual for a banana to behave like that, so I am definetly not convinced that it is as simple as being a M. sikkimensis M. 'Chini Champa' hybrid. I've never seen 'Helens Hybrid' flower (except one picture of the fruit bunch), but without examining the male flowers for viable pollen and maybe doing some test crosses with some wild diploid pollen on its female flowers, I don't really feel comfortable saying anything about its true genetics or breeding habits. Also, 'Helens Hybrid' is often touted as a "as close to a truly cold hardy edible banana as you can get", but it must be remembered that if they are able to harvest all of this true-to-type seed, then the fruit must be seeded, and thus not considered an edible banana at all, so in that aspect its no better of a breeding candidate than any wild species.

I don't even know where to go from here really, its such a large and complicated area. Basically, if you want to get serious about breeding I recommend buying Simmonds "The Evolution of the Bananas", and go from there, because there are really hundreds of different things to consider when breeding bananas. Banana genetics are very different from most plants, and they tend to do lots of special things not commonly observed in other plants when breeding, so to understand how to best approach breeding you really need to first familiarize yourself with many of the different aspects and facets that are unique to bananas.

10-10-2007, 04:13 AM	#2 (permalink)
Gabe15 Moderator Gabe15's Photo Gallery Location: Oahu, Hawaii Find me on the map! Zone: 12 Name: Gabe Join Date: Jul 2005 Posts: 3,892 BananaBucks : 13,504,508 Feedback: 5 / 100% Said "Thanks" 2 Times Was Thanked 8,248 Times in 2,201 Posts Said "Welcome to Bananas" 8 Times	Re: Best cultivars for cold hardy cross pollination Banana breeding is a very complicated process and to create seedless, edible bananas is not as easy as just doing a few basic cross pollinations. It takes years to do all of the breeding and selection before a desirable plant is created. 'Helens Hybrid' is really unknown in terms of genetics, its still a hobbyists variety and there is no DNA work done on it that I know of. It is reported as being a M. sikkimensis/M. 'Chini Champa' hybrid (SS+AB, which has the potential to result in anything from diploid to heptaploid, but since bananas loose vigor beyond tetraploid, it has to be either 2X, 3X or 4X), and if they truly are harvesting all of this true to type seed, you could only assume that it is both fertile (male and female) and self compatible. However, this would be really unusual for a banana to behave like that, so I am definetly not convinced that it is as simple as being a M. sikkimensis M. 'Chini Champa' hybrid. I've never seen 'Helens Hybrid' flower (except one picture of the fruit bunch), but without examining the male flowers for viable pollen and maybe doing some test crosses with some wild diploid pollen on its female flowers, I don't really feel comfortable saying anything about its true genetics or breeding habits. Also, 'Helens Hybrid' is often touted as a "as close to a truly cold hardy edible banana as you can get", but it must be remembered that if they are able to harvest all of this true-to-type seed, then the fruit must be seeded, and thus not considered an edible banana at all, so in that aspect its no better of a breeding candidate than any wild species. I don't even know where to go from here really, its such a large and complicated area. Basically, if you want to get serious about breeding I recommend buying Simmonds "The Evolution of the Bananas", and go from there, because there are really hundreds of different things to consider when breeding bananas. Banana genetics are very different from most plants, and they tend to do lots of special things not commonly observed in other plants when breeding, so to understand how to best approach breeding you really need to first familiarize yourself with many of the different aspects and facets that are unique to bananas. __________________ Growing bananas in Colorado, Washington, Hawaii since 2004. Commercial banana farmer, 200+ varieties.