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Gabe15 · 06-20-2010, 07:04 AM

Breeding any crop is difficult, you take two plants which look good, put them together and who knows what will come out. What makes breeding bananas more difficult than say, maize, is that bananas take about a year to flower, and so to see one hybrid through, from planting the parents, doing the cross and raising the progeny to maturity may take up to 3 years. Maize in Hawaii can go through 4 cycles in a year, 4 cycles in banana could take 10 years. Bananas are also relatively large plants which require a lot of space, which means a lot of land that rarely comes cheap. Compare the space needed for 1000 maize plants (10 rows of 100 plants at 1ft spacing) to the same needed for banana at a 6ft spacing, it adds up quick! Additionally, bananas are a crop based on the absence of seed, and breeding is based on the presence of seed, so some interesting challenges can arise with that to further slow the process. However, bananas are relatively quick if you compare it to the breeding of tree crops which may take 15 years or more to flower from seed. So it's all relative.

What I mean by my previous statements is that, if you have the right parents and facilities (a tissue culture lab is highly useful for embryo rescue since even normal wild banana seeds are difficult to germinate, and the edible hybrids are normally far worse), producing progeny is not that difficult. But the time and resources required to sort through that progeny, evaluate a number of cycles, and do further breeding if necessary to find what you are looking for is very time consuming compared to most common staple crops such as maize, wheat, rice, tomatoes, leafy greens etc...

Mostly its an issue of time, and a lot of breeding work in bananas is focused on reducing the amount of time it takes to evaluate hybrids. One of the technologies of high interest is marker assisted selection, whereby a breeder is able to detect a specific gene that must be transferred, and so plants can be screened even when very young for the presence or absence of that gene. This of course has its drawbacks too, such as missing out on a potentially very useful new trait that would have only showed at flowering, but that's an example of the kind of work that is being done.

06-20-2010, 07:04 AM	#9 (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 : 13,348,046 Feedback: 5 / 100% Said "Thanks" 1 Times Was Thanked 8,241 Times in 2,200 Posts Said "Welcome to Bananas" 8 Times	Re: Seeds in my bananas Breeding any crop is difficult, you take two plants which look good, put them together and who knows what will come out. What makes breeding bananas more difficult than say, maize, is that bananas take about a year to flower, and so to see one hybrid through, from planting the parents, doing the cross and raising the progeny to maturity may take up to 3 years. Maize in Hawaii can go through 4 cycles in a year, 4 cycles in banana could take 10 years. Bananas are also relatively large plants which require a lot of space, which means a lot of land that rarely comes cheap. Compare the space needed for 1000 maize plants (10 rows of 100 plants at 1ft spacing) to the same needed for banana at a 6ft spacing, it adds up quick! Additionally, bananas are a crop based on the absence of seed, and breeding is based on the presence of seed, so some interesting challenges can arise with that to further slow the process. However, bananas are relatively quick if you compare it to the breeding of tree crops which may take 15 years or more to flower from seed. So it's all relative. What I mean by my previous statements is that, if you have the right parents and facilities (a tissue culture lab is highly useful for embryo rescue since even normal wild banana seeds are difficult to germinate, and the edible hybrids are normally far worse), producing progeny is not that difficult. But the time and resources required to sort through that progeny, evaluate a number of cycles, and do further breeding if necessary to find what you are looking for is very time consuming compared to most common staple crops such as maize, wheat, rice, tomatoes, leafy greens etc... Mostly its an issue of time, and a lot of breeding work in bananas is focused on reducing the amount of time it takes to evaluate hybrids. One of the technologies of high interest is marker assisted selection, whereby a breeder is able to detect a specific gene that must be transferred, and so plants can be screened even when very young for the presence or absence of that gene. This of course has its drawbacks too, such as missing out on a potentially very useful new trait that would have only showed at flowering, but that's an example of the kind of work that is being done. __________________ Growing bananas in Colorado, Washington, Hawaii since 2004. Commercial banana farmer, 200+ varieties.